REYNOLDS HISTORICAL
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
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New Hampshire
Sesgui-Centennial Celeb ration
One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary
o
1 the
Establishment of Independent
Government
Compiled bij the Secretary and Published
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bg the Commission
THE W. B. RANNEV CO.
PRINTERS
PENACOOK, N. H.
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New Hampshire
Sesqui-Centennial Celebration
A few years since some leading spirit or di¬
recting mind in the National Society, Sons of
the American Revolution, conceived the idea of
celebrating the one hundred and fiftieth anni¬
versaries of important Revolutionary events.
The idea was adopted by the Society, and meas¬
ures taken to awaken general interest in the
plan which has been carried out thus far by the
celebration of many events, like the Boston Mas¬
sacre, the Boston Tea Party, the fights at Con¬
cord and Lexington, the battle of Bunker Hill,
the Evacuation of Boston by the British troops,
etc. '
There were two New Hampshire events of
sufficient importance to command consideration
in carrying out this programme. The first was
the assault, upon Fort William and Mary at
Newcastle, by the band of patriots under John
Sullivan and John Langdon, in December, 1774
— the first overt act in the Revolution — and the
second the establishment of independent gov¬
ernment for the Colony, by the Provincial Con¬
gress at Exeter, in January, 1776, which
was the first government, with a written con¬
stitution, set up in any of the Colonies.*
The first named event was duly celebrated in
connection with an elaborate Old Home Week
observance in New Castle, in August 1924;
*For a concise account of the organization of this first in¬
dependent government, see the introduction to Vol. IV of the
Marly Laws of New Hampshire, covering the period from 1776
to 1784.
(3)
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4
NEW II AM I»S I URIC
while the second, has been observed, with ap¬
propriate exercises, at the State Capital, some
account of which is herewith presented.
The following Joint Resolution, reported
from the House Judiciary Committee, referred
to the Committee on National Affairs, approved
by the same and sent to the Committee on Ap¬
propriations, under the rules, was favorably
reported by the latter, passed by the House,
sent up to the Senate and concurred in by that
body, sent to the Governor and approved by him
April 21, 1925.
Chapter 238.
Joint resolution providing for an appropriate celebration
of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the establish¬
ment of independent government in New Hampshire .
That whereas - the Provincial Congress at Exeter, on
the fifth day of January 1776, formulated and established
an independent government for New Hampshire, which
thereby became the first of the revolting colonies to re¬
nounce allegiancp to the British, throne; and whereas a plan
has been developed, through the agency of the National So¬
ciety, Sous of the American Revolution, to promote the
formal and appropriate celebration of all important events,
civil and military, which marked the progress of the great
struggle for freedom in which the patriot colonists engaged ;
and whereas due recognition and contemplation of the brave
and determined action of our fathers in prosecuting this
conflict to success, and establishing the free institution which
we now enjoy, tend to 'Stimulate our own patriotic im¬
pulses, and strengthen our love for these institutions, there¬
fore a commission of nine members, including His Ex¬
cellency the Governor, the president of the senate, the
speaker of the house of representatives and six others to he
named by the governor and council, is hereby provided for,
which commission is authorized and instructed to arrange
and carry out an appropriate celebration of this great his¬
toric event — the establishment of independent government in
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SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
5
New Hampshire — six months before the Declaration of In¬
dependence by the Continental Congress at Philadelphia ;
and the sum of one thousand dollars ($1,000) or such por¬
tion thereof as may be found necessary, is hereby appro¬
priated, from any money in the treasury not otherwise ex¬
pended to defray the expenses of the commission in carrying
out this celebration.
Approved April 21, 1925.
In due time the Governor appointed the fol¬
lowing named persons to be members of the
Commission, in accordance with the terms of
the resolution: Henry H. Metcalf of Concord;
John E. Young of Exeter; James P. Tuttle of
Manchester; Harry F. Lake of Concord; Clara
D. Fellows of Tilton and Mary E. Woodward
of Conway. Judge Young declined the appoint¬
ment, on account of ill health, and President
Tobey failed to serve.
On July 6, 1925, the Commission met in the
Council Chamber, at the State House, and or¬
ganized by the choice of Gov. John G. Winant
as Chairman ; Henry H. Metcalf, Secretary and
Harry F. Lake, Treasurer.
The matter of time and place for holding the
celebration was considered, and, after much dis¬
cussion, it was voted, on motion of Gen. Tuttle,
that the same be held in Concord.
On motion of Mrs. Fellows it was voted that
Wednesday, June 2 be fixed as the date of the
celebration.
The subject of the selection of a proper per¬
son to deliver the anniversary address, was dis¬
cussed to some extent, and finally, on motion of
Mr. Wood, it was voted that the Secretary, Mrs.
Fellows and Gen. Tuttle be a Committee to en¬
gage the services of such speaker; after which
the meeting was adjourned.
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6
NEW HAMPSHIRE
'
A second meeting of the Commission was
held in the Council Chamber, on October 26,
Gov. Winant the Chairman being absent in New
York, on important business, and Speaker
Wood presiding.
The Committee appointed to select an anni¬
versary speaker, reported that Prof. James A.
Tufts of Phillips Exeter Academy had been
invited to deliver the address, and had accepted
the invitation.
It was voted that a Memorial Service, in
honor of the New Hampshire men who aided in
establishing the Independence of the American
colonies, be held in Representatives Hall on
Sunday, May 30, Memorial Day.
It was also voted that a Reunion of State Of¬
ficials, past and present, be held on Tuesday,
June 1.
On motion of Mr. Lake it wa§ voted that a
committee of three, with the Secretary as
Chairman, (he to name the other two members)
be constituted to arrange the programme for
the celebration. The Secretary named Gen.
Tuttle and Miss Woodward to serve with him
as such Committee.
'Adjourned.
The Programme Committee met at the office
of Gen. Tuttle in Manchester, on Tuesday, Nov¬
ember 24, and arrived at the following decisions,
. subsequently set forth in a circular, issued to
the press of the State:
At the Union Religious Service, to be held in Represen¬
tatives Hall, at 3 P. M. on Sunday, May 30, (Memorial
Day) in honor of the men of New Hampshire who aided
! in establishing our National Independence, by service on
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SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
7
the field of battle, or otherwise, the devotional exercises
will be conducted by Rev. O. W. Peterson of Penacook,
Chaplain of the Legislature, and the address will be given
by Rev, George H. Reed, D.D., pastor of the old First
Church of Concord.
Music will be furnished by a chorus of the combined
church choirs of' Concord, under the direction of Herbert
W. Rainie.
Tuesday, June 1, “Official Reunion Day” will open with
a social reunion, and exchange of greetings between past
and present State officials — Governors, Judges, Legislators
and other state officers; with a reception in the Council
Chamber by the Governor and Council, and the Supreme
Court at li o’clock A. M.
In the afternoon, opening at 1 :30, a meeting will be held
in Representatives Hall, at which Hon. George A. Wood,
Speaker of the House, will preside, and five minute ad¬
dresses will be made by representatives of different branches
of the government.
Orchestral music will he furnished for the reception and
the afternoon meeting.
On Wednesday, June 2, (Anniversary Day, proper) it is
expected that a great street parade will be arranged for the
morning, by the Concord City Government and the Cham--
ber of Commerce.
The President of the United States and the Governors
of Maine, Massachusetts and Vermont, whose attendance
has been invited, will if present, briefly address the people
from the front of the State House, at 11 o’clock.
At 1 :30 P. M. the anniversary exercises will open in
Representatives Hall, at which Gov. John G. Winant, Chair¬
man of the Commission, will preside and the Anniversary
Address will be given by Prof. James A. Tufts of Phillips
Exeter Academy.
Brief addresses will also he given by prominent repre¬
sentatives of the Bar, the Ministry, the Medical profession,
Education, the Public Service, and the Womanhood of the
State.
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NEW HAMPSHIRE
Music will be furnished, for the afternoon, by, a male
quartette and an accomplished soloist.
A complete detailed programme will be issued shortly
before the week of the celebration.
H. H. METCALF,
JAMES P. TUTTLE,
MARY E. WOODWARD,
Programme Committee.
Through future consultation, by correspon¬
dence, the details of the programme were work¬
ed out, and the following issued in circular
form, several thousand copies being distributed
by mail throughout the State :
N. H. Sesqui-Centennial Celebration
ORDER OF EXERCISES
Sunday, JVTay 30, Memorial Day
Memorial Service in honor of the Men of New Hamp¬
shire, in Military and Civil Life, who aided in establishing
American Independence and the building of the Nation, in
Representatives Hall, at 3:00 P. M.
Order of Service
Chorus “The Lord is My Light” Parker
United Choins of Concord, Herbert W. Rair#e, Director,
Scripture Reading,
Rev. Earl C. Davis, Pastor Unitarian Church
Prayer, Rev. O. W. Peterson, Chaplain N. H. Legislature
Soprano Solo “O Lord, Thou Hast Searched Me Out”
Mary Shaw Raynes Gilchrist
Memorial Address, Rev. George H. Reed, D.D.,
Pastor First Congregational Church
Chorus “Father, Thy Children Bow in Adoration” Sullivan
Benediction, Rev. Everett A. Rockwell,
Pastor Pleasant St. Baptist Church
The Daughters and Sons of the American Revolution, the
Grand Army of the Republic, the Spanish War Veterans, and
the American Legion are specially invited to attend this service.
A delegation from Rumford Chapter, D. A. R., of Concord
will act as ushers.
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SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
9
Tuesday, June 1, Official Reunion Day
A Social Reunion and exchange of greetings between Past
and Present State Officials, Executive, Judicial and Legisla¬
tive, will be held in the State House in the morning. At
11 o’clock A. M., sharp, a Reception will be held in the
Council Chamber by the Governor and Council and the
Supreme Court.
Music for the Reception will be furnished by the Concord
Orchestral Club, Ernest E Heath Principal, and a delega¬
tion of Concord Lawyers will act as ushers.
In the afternoon at 1 :30 a meeting will be held in Repre¬
sentatives Hall,
Hon. George A. Wood, Speaker of the House Presiding
Overture, “A Summer Night’s Dream” Sup pc
Concord Orchestral Club
Invocation, Rev. John Vannevar, D.D.,
Past Chaplain, New Hampshire National Guard
Address, Hon. Nahum J. Bachelder, oldest surviving Gov¬
ernor of New Hampshire
Address, Hon. Frank N. Parsons, former Chief Justice
Supreme Court
Address, Hon. George H. Moses, U. S. Senator.
Address, Hon. Henry W. Keyes, U. S. Senator.
Address, Hon. Leslie P. Snow, former President N. H.
State Senate
Address, Mrs. Mary I. Wood, former Member State
Board of Charities and Correction
Soprano Solo “For All Eternity’’ % Mascheroni
Mary Shaw Raynes, with Orchestral accompaniment
Address, Hon. William J. Ahern, Veteran Legislator and
former Speaker
Address, Hon. Albert O. Brown, President laist Consti¬
tutional Convention.
Address, Hon. Arthur G. Whittemore, former Member
Executive Council
Address, Hon. Fred H. Brown, Public Service Commissioner
Address, Hon. Huntley N. Spaulding, President S'tatp
Board of Education
Selection, “Serenade” Titl
.Concord Orchestral Club
Others present may be called upon as time permits.
Speeches to be confined to five or ten minutes.
10
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Wednesday, June 2, Anniversary Day
Tn the Forenoon, weather permitting, there will be a
Grand Parade, in which the
Three Thousand Pupils of Concord Schools
will participate, and in which all other schools in the
State are invited to join. Other features may be added
to the Parade which is provided for by the Concord City
Government and Chamber of Commerce.
In the afternoon, at 1 :30, in the Hall of the House, the
Anniversary Exercises, proper, will be held,
Governor John G. Winant, Presiding
Invocation, Rev. Lee S. McCollester, D.D., Past Chaplain
National Society, S. A. R., and Dean of Crane Divinity
School, Tufts College
Soprano Solo “The Star Spangled Banner”
Klara Muehling, Manchester Francis Scott Key
Anniversary Address, James Arthur Tufts, LL.D.,
Professor of English, Phillips Exeter Academy
Selection “Comrades in Arms,” Adam
Temple Male Quartet, Concord
Poem, Rev. Raymond H. Huse
Former Pastor New Hampshire M. E. Churches
Brief Addresses in the following Order :
“New Hampshire and the Christian Ministry,” Rev.
Burton W. Lpckhart, D.D., Pastor .Emeritus Frank¬
lin Street Congregational Church, Manchester
“New Hampshire Lawyers and Judges,” Hon. Sherman
L. Whipple, Leader of the Boston Bar
Soprano Solo, “Hurrah for Old New Hampshire”
IV. P. Chamberlain
Klara Muehling, Manchester
“New Hampshire in the Medical Profession,” Ben¬
jamin W. Baker, M.D., Superintendent State School,
Laconia
“New Hampshire Women,” Ida Farr Miller, Wakefield,
Mass., Organizer New Hampshire’s Daughters
Selection, “The Flag is Passing By” Jones
Temple Male Quartet
“New Hampshire in Education,” Ernest W. Butterfield,
State Superintendent of Public Instruction
SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
11
“New Hampshire in the Public Service,” Hon. Wil¬
liam N. Rogers, Former Member of Congress, 1st N.
H. District
“America” Audience
Benediction, Rev. William Porter Niles, Rector Church of
the Good Shepherd, Nashua.
The programme for the several days was car¬
ried out as advertised, except that Dr. Vanne-
var, announced for the Invocation on Tuesday,
was detained by illness, and that service was
performed by Rev. 0. W. Peterson, Chaplain of
the Legislature; and Ex-Chief Justice Parsons
and Senator Keyes failed to appear.
Sunday, May 30, Memorial Day
At the Sunday service representatives of the
Daughters and Sons of the American Revolu¬
tion, the Grand Army of the Republic and the
Spanish War Veterans were in attendance, oc¬
cupying reserved sections; but there was no
representation of the American Legion. A del¬
egation of ladies from Rumford Chapter, D.
A. R., headed by Mrs. Charles L. Jackman, Vice
Regent, served as ushers.
The Scripture selection, read by Rev. Earl C.
Davis was from the 11th Chapter of Hebrews.
Following is that portion of Dr. Reed's ad¬
dress of a historical nature:
By faith the patriot sons of Portsmouth, on
the very day of the Boston Tea Party, adopted
resolutions declaring the action of the British
Parliment inconsistent with the fundamental
principles of the British Constitution.
By faith John Langdon and Major John Sul¬
livan, being warned by Paul Revere of a royal
decree that the colonies could no longer carry
12
NEW HAMPSHIRE
arms or secure ammunition, seized a hundred
barrels of powder at Fort William and Mary;
and because they saw it was the proper thing to
do and were not afraid of the King’s command¬
ment, that powder was hid three months in
divers places, even in the house of God.
By faith the men of many a New Hampshire
town, hearing the news of Lexington, hastened
to the meeting-house green, whence they ran,
rather than marched, to the scene of action.
By faith the speaker of the Assembly assured
the Massachusetts House that they might de¬
pend upon the readiness of New Hampshire to
co-operate with the other colonies in the de¬
fense of their liberties. By faith the citizens of
Portsmouth appointed a day of fasting and
prayer and voted to raise money for the com¬
mon defense, for they looked for a constitution¬
al government whose foundation should be
righteousness and justice, whose builder and
maker is Gpd.
By faith William Whipple, educated on a ves¬
sel, Master of his own ship at the age of twenty-
one, abandoned the African slave trade, setting
at liberty his own slaves, and, not fearing the
disapproval of Washington, declined to assist
in the recovery of Mrs. Washington’s servant,
who had found sanctuary in New Hampshire.
By faith he cast in his lot with the American
Colonies and hazarded his life at Stillwater and
Saratoga; and, hurrying to the aid of Sullivan,
was but two days on the march from Ports¬
mouth to Rhode Island.
Notwithstanding it was high treason and he
might end his days in the Tower of London, he
signed the Declaration of Independence, writing
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SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
13
there a name which New Hampshire must never
forget, William Whipple.
By faith Josiah Bartlett surrendered the of¬
fice which had been given him in the hope of
securing his support of the royal cause. By
faith he accepted the perilous responsibilities of
membership in the Committee of Safety, a com¬
mittee, the very existence of which was a dec¬
laration of war against the mightiest nation on
earth.
The last President of New Hampshire, the
first Governor under the newly-adopted consti¬
tution, by faith he was the first to cast his vote
for the Declaration of Independence and the first
after Johh Hancock to sign that immortal
charter. Conscious that he was signing his
death warrant if the cause of the colonies was
lost, Josiah Bartlett took his place among the
men who pledged their lives, their fortunes and
their sacred honor to die for freedom, and thus
he became the heir of the righteousness which is
according to faith.
By faith Matthew Thornton, entering Con¬
gress after, the adoption of the Declaration of
Independence, was at his own request permit¬
ted to become one of its signers. By the stroke
of his pen he forfeited all hope of wealth and all
* chance of preferment, and became a rebel
against the King and Parliament. By faith he
organized assemblies at the risk of his life, and
issued appeals to his country-men to pledge
every man his honor and his estate to meet the
expenses of the struggle.
By faith he helped to draft the first written
constitution ever adopted by any American Col¬
ony, and was one of the twelve men who, six
months before the Declaration of Independence,
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14
NEW HAMPSHIRE
adopted a declaration which Governor Bell de¬
clared to be “the earliest official suggestion of
national independence.”
By faith Matthew Thornton became the au¬
thor of the affirmation that “only on religion
can we build our hope of that divine favor with- -
out which all the measures we can purpose will
end in shame and disappointment,” and being-
dead he yet speaketh.
By faith General Sullivan wavered not when
he read the threat of Peter Livius, “You were
the first man in active rebellion, and you drew
with you the province you live in. You will be
one of the first sacrifices to resentment and the
justice of the government. Your family will
be ruined and you must die with ignominy.”
By faith John Sullivan refused to be intimidat¬
ed, choosing rather to suffer handship at Bran¬
dywine, Germantown and Valley Forge than to
enjoy ease and safety for a season, esteeming
the reproach of the poverty-stricken colonies
greater riches than the emoluments of England.
When the issue was so doubtful that Connecti¬
cut men withdrew, Sullivan hastened home from
Philadelphia and mustering two thousand men
in ten days, marched with them to Massa¬
chusetts. At Long Island he was one of the
eight thousand men who held twenty-three
thousand British troops at bay. At Butts Hill
he led the American troops from seven in the
morning until seven at night in the battle that
Lafayette pronounced the best contested battle
of the war. Leader of the expedition against
the Six Nations, he overthrew the most power¬
ful organization of Indians ever on this con¬
tinent.
By faith the opposition to the Constitution
SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
15
fell down when it had been compassed about
many days, and General Sullivan being presi¬
dent of. the Convention that met in the Old
North Church in Concord, declared the Con¬
stitution of the United States ratified by the
action of New Hampshire.
By faith John Langdon, lamenting that his
abilities were not greater, promised to employ
them in the service of his country. Six times
governor of his state, the first United States
Senator elected in New Hampshire, president
of the Senate, and as such, notifying Washing¬
ton of his election to the Presidency, he fulfilled
his promise.
By faith he offered up all that he had, saying,
“I have a thousand dollars in hard money, I
will pledge my plate for three thousand more,
I have seventy hogshead of Tobago rum which
will be sold for the most they will bring. They
are at the service of the State; ”
By faith, moved with the godly fear and no
other fear, he prepared the good ship Ranger
for the saving of his country, and over it Paul
Jones unfurled the first United States flag that
ever floated above the American navy.
By faith, John Stark, shutting dowa the gates
of his mill, seizing his gun, leaping upon his
horse, in ten minutes from the time he heard
the call was mustering men before whom the
British forces were to reel back at Bunker Hill.
When Washington’s dwindling army was re¬
treating before the exultant foe, by faith Stark
pledged his private property for the payment
of the arrears of the despairing New Hamp-
hire soldiers whose terms of service has expir¬
ed. Those hungry and ragged men, rallying by
the banks of the Delaware, aided in winning
16
NEW HAMPSHIRE
two victories that Frederick the Great pro¬
nounced among the most brilliant in all the
achievements of war.
By faith John Stark, summoned to lead a
brigade of volunteers against the advancing
army of Burgoyne, obeyed to go out to a place
called Bennington, and there, in two terrific
battles made possible the surrender jof Bur¬
goyne at Saratoga.
By faith General Stark, because he endured
as seeing Him who is invisible, refused to be en¬
treated by his brother William who besought
him to enter the camp of King George. By
faith he had this witness borne unto him, that
by the banks of the Merrimack, where the field
slopes to the setting sun, he spent the years that
lengthened into four score and ten, watching
the development of the institutions he had help¬
ed to plant, and pondering the Word of God.
By faith Meshech Weare, graduate of Har¬
vard, student of theology and of law, became
perhaps the most conspicuous man in civil life;
the trusted confidant of Washington, made
chairman of the Committee of Safety at the out¬
set of the Revolution, thirty years in the provin¬
cial legislature, thirty-five years a member of
the Supreme Court and eight years President of
•New Hampshire; filling important offices for
forty-five years, he had witness borne to him
that was well pleasing to God, and herein was
fulfilled the scripture “A man shall be as the
shadow of a great rock in a weary land.”
By faith Israel Evans, ordained as Chaplain
in 1776, became the only chaplain who served
continuously throughout the war. He was with
Montgomery at Quebec, with General Gates at
Ticonderoga, with General Poor at the capture
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SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
17
of Burgoyne at Saratoga, with Washington at
Valley Forge, and with Sullivan on his expedi¬
tion against the Six hostile Nations of Indians.
He witnessed the surrender of Lord Cornwall
at Yorktown.
By faith Chaplain Evans when his end was
nigh, and he was assured that after his gallant
service on the field and his holy ministry in Con¬
cord, he would sit down with Abraham and Isaac
and Jacob, exclaimed “And with General Wash¬
ington/’
What shall I more say, for time would fail me
to tell of Prescott and Dearborn and Cilley, of
Scammel and Miller and Reed and Warren and
Folsom and Judge Livermore, who, through
faith wrought righteousness, out of weakness
were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned
to flight the armies of the oppressor; of William
Diamond of Peterborough who beat the reveille
that summoned the minute men to assemble on
the common at Lexington, whose ancient drum
is now in a glass case on the main floor of the
Lexington Historical Society.
Of Johp T. Gilman of Exeter, who, hearing
the news of Lexington, marched as a^volunteer
to Cambridge, stopping only for the night’s rest
at Andover, reporting for duty the following
' noon, and who was accounted worthy to be
fourteen times elected governor of his state.
Of General Benjamin Bellows who, when
prices were steadily rising by reason of the fluc¬
tuation of paper currency, at great personal
loss, maintained a uniform price for everything
he had to sell.
Of obscure soldiers unknown to fame, who
had trials of cruel sufferings, were slain with
. , •; ) ... [
18
NEW HAMPSHIRE
the sword, wandering in forests, tracking the
snow with their bleeding feet.
Of women who toiled in weariness and suf¬
fered in silence, of others who were tortured
not accepting deliverance that they might at¬
tain unto the immortality of the just.
These all died in faith, not having received
the promises, but having greeted them from
afar.
Tuesday, June 1, Official Reunion Day
The exercises for Tuesday, June 1, charac¬
terized as “Official Reunion Day/’ which, more
appropriately, would have been held following,
instead of preceding the Anniversary Day prop¬
er, since there were no government officials
till the government itself had been established,
were carried out in accordance with the pro¬
gramme as printed, except, as previously stated,
that the Invocation, in the afternoon, was given
by Rev. 0. W. Peterson, Chaplain of the Legisla¬
ture, in place of Dr. Vannevar detained by ill¬
ness, and Judge Parsons and Senator Keyes
failed to appear, the latter prevented by official
duties.
* The reception by the Governor and Council
and Supreme Court, in the Council Chamber,
at 11 A. M., was largely attended, Secretary of
State, Hobart Pillsbury, acting as Master of
Ceremonies, and a delegation of Concord law¬
yers as ushers.
Speaker Wood, upon being presented as
Chairman at the afternoon meeting, delivered
Hi
SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
19
an address of considerable length and much his¬
toric interest, and felicitously introduced the
several speakers; while the musical numbers
were finely rendered and generously applauded.
Following are the addresses, in the order
given :
Address of Ex-Gov. Nahum J. Bachelder
Mr. Speaker and Fellow Citizens:
I am aware that my appearance in these ex¬
ercises is due to the fact that I once held an
important position in the state government,
rather than to any personal qualifications for
this distinguished honor.
The practice of reviewing the past is as old
as government itself, and the habit of observ¬
ing anniversary events is equally venerable.
As these events have multiplied in recent years
their observance has become noteworthy in
civic and public affairs, and when the event is
the Sesqui Centennial of one of the thirteen
original states it becomes of national, and even
international concern.
It is therefore well that we pause in this
strenubus age to pay homage to the memory of
the noble men who laid the foundation of this
state government, not forgetting the honorable
women who doubtless played a prominent but
unrecorded part in the deliberations resulting in
its establishment. When many sections of the
territory now known as New Hampshire were
reached only on horseback along spotted trails;
when the chief interest of the people was clear¬
ing the land of forests, building rude cabins,
rearing large families of healthy children and
protecting them and themselves from Wild
beasts and the fiercer red man, they assembled
20
NEW HAMPSHIRE .
in solemn convention and constructed the frame¬
work of the government of the state of New
Hampshire which has been so effective in the
past and that we live under to-day. It is dif¬
ficult to appreciate the patriotism and far-sight¬
edness exercised by those sturdy pioneers in the
midst of primitive surroundings. Their strug¬
gles and privations are common knowledge and
their patriotism has world wide reputation.
While we recognize the wholesome vigor with
which they went about their tasks, and believe
they found enjoyment of a certain kind in their
labor, we cannot refrain from rejoicing that
our existence is in the present, strenuous and
exacting as it may be.
The spotted trails, and later the famous New
Hampshire turnpikes, have given place to a
magnificent system of highways; the means of
communication requiring days and even weeks
to distant points within the state, have given
way to the telephone and radio; the means of
transportation from horseback and later the
stage coach, have been superceded by swiftly
moving trains and airplanes; the means of ed¬
ucation from the little red school house, horn
orable as it was, has been succeeded by a$ elab¬
orate system of education, supported by state
and municipal governments, and philanthropic
individuals, with public libraries almost at every
crossroad; electricity with its marvelous devel¬
opment, and the vision of our statesmen extend¬
ed from town and state lines to world-wide con¬
sideration, are a few of the changes that make
for broader and happier life to-day.
And yet, the bounds have not been reached.
It would be a bold prophet indeed who could
predict what the future has in store in the field
L ! ■ '< ' •, ' ': ■»{.
• i . ; i- j
!mk rrwoi mot • be
SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
21
of electricity, the surface of which has only been
scratched ; in the development of means of com¬
munication and transportation through the air
now in its infancy; the part which representa¬
tives of our state may take in the consideration
of world problems; the development of our ag¬
ricultural and industrial interests throughout
the state.
It may be that a celebration the nature of that
we observe to-day will be held at the completion
of another similar period, and the people then
assembled may have reason to note our present
condition as primitive as we to-day consider
the beginning of the period which this occasion
commemorates.
May we, and our descendants be as loyal and
patriotic in the development and perpetuation
of New Hampshire as were those who laid the
foundation of the state government in the in¬
terest of the people, for the people and by the
people. Then as to-day, New Hampshire will
be the pride of every citizen and the peer of any
state.
22
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Address of Hon. George H. Moses
Mr. Speaker, Ladies and Gentlemen:
The five minute rule under which the program
is conducted and which has been so pointedly
called to our attention, was doubtless adopted
for my special benefit. But I hasten to assure
you, ladies and gentlemen, that I have no pur¬
pose to speak in the manner which a mistaken
public opinion too often attributes to the Sen¬
ate Chamber, namely of speaking without lim¬
itation of time and with no reference to the
subject before the house.
The central theme of this week of celebration
is, of course, New Hampshire, which I have
been proud to describe often as the little state
with the big history. This observance takes us
back to one of those significant first things
which New Hampshire has accomplished and
it is a source of great satisfaction in this ses-
qui-centennial year for us to recall that, after
having struck the first armed blow in the war
of the Revolution, New Hampshire recognized
that laws are not always silent among arms and
adopted the first written Constitution in the
land, thus giving to us a double significance for
our celebration. %
Proud though we are of the great past whose
glories have been recounted to us, this celebra¬
tion would serve us ill indeed if we kept our
eyes only upon the past. We should consider
the present and we should look as far as we
may into the future.
We see New Hampshire to-day with a prac¬
tically stationery population and with a taxable
inventory which cannot be largely (expanded
even through the utmost efforts of the State
Tax Commission. We recognize as never be-
.1 f»37ooD .noU to wmibbA
' ’ • , / . ■ : I .
■■ ■ : . - . ' > ■ i. ' ' :: Oti ■
SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 23
fore our geographic isolation, our lack of raw
materials, our remoteness from the source of
supply and, above all, the increasing competi¬
tion which is thrust upon us by communities
more favorably situated. Thus far we have
maintained ourselves and have made our ad¬
vance through the enterprise, the initiative,
the skill and the thrift of our people. We have
brought here hides from Texas, wool from Mon¬
tana, cotton from Alabama, steel and iron and
coal from Pennsylvania, and we have trans¬
formed them into fine machinery, into beautiful
fabrics and into handsome and substantial
shoes — then shipping them out again to carry
the repute of New Hampshire to every corner
of the Nation and to every quarter of the globe.
We cannot hope for further advance and it may
be that we cannot hope even to maintain our
present position if we increase our geographic
and economic handicap by ill-advised legisla¬
tion or by mal-administration of public affairs.
The thrift and the prudence which have marked
New Hampshire’s public and private life and
which have brought us from the simple begin¬
nings of that day of organized state conscious¬
ness which we now celebrate must not" be aban¬
doned. 1
Nor will they be. They formed and form the
greatest element in our strongest asset which
lies in the character of our people. So long as
that continues with us unchanged and unchang¬
ing we may look to the future with complete
confidence that our successors, celebrating this
day in another epoch, will find New Hamp¬
shire, as she always has been, self-sustaining,
self-respecting and self-compelling in the course
which the fathers set for us.
.a u ioi Joe B'toaJfiJ oilJ rfoirf#
24
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Address of Hon. Leslie P. Snow
Mr. Chairman and Fellow Citizens:
It seems appropriate that I should devote the
few minutes assigned to me to some of the per¬
haps forgotten facts incident to the evolution
of the office for which I am asked to speak.
The presiding officer of the upper branch of
our General Court occupies a station which has
always marked the boundary line between the
executive and legislative functions of our gov¬
ernment, but which has sometimes been on one
side of that boundary line and sometimes on
the other.
As a background for an understanding of
the development, through its several stages, of
this unique feature in our New Hampshire
form of government, we need to have in mind
three facts.
(1) The prevalent hatred and distrust of
kingly power which marked the Revolutionary
period, and the consequent disinclination of the
people to delegate any executive powers to in¬
dividual rulers.
(2) The fact that the New Hampshire Con¬
stitution of 1776 was the first one to be adopted
by any of the American colonies, and was Writ¬
ten while the animosity towards George the
Third was at its height, while the final consti¬
tution as perfected sixteen years later (1792)
was one of the last, and was formulated after
the antipathies for the mother government had
largely subsided.
(3) The fact that during this period, from
1776 to 1792, the philosophy of government was
more studied and more scientifically applied
than in any other period of the world’s history,
v I ! .«? dih k! .noH lo anribbA
r >r. vJ >n O.t i')n *r;
SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
25
before or since; so that in the final draft of
their fundamental law our forefathers not only
worked in a less prejudicial atmosphere but had
the advantage of the accumulated wisdom of
all of the many able American constitutional¬
ists and publicists whom that epoch of written
constitutions had produced.
Under the very simple plan of government of
January 1776, the adoption of which we cele¬
brate to-day, the state had no executive head.
The upper branch of the dual ruling body con¬
sisted of twelve freeholders — chosen in the first
instance by the House of Representatives — and
later by the voters of the several counties. This
branch was denominated the Council. It was
authorized to elect its own President, in whose
absence the Senior Councilor presided.
As the two assemblies were endowed not only
with the legislative functions of government,
but with such limited executive functions as
the people were then willing to delegate, the
President of the Council was the most impor¬
tant single figure in the state government. As
these bodies could not remain constantly in ses¬
sion, it was a logical consequence that this of¬
ficer should also be made, as he was, the Chair¬
man of the Public Safety Committee, which held
the reins of government during the recess of the
House and Council. These allied offices came as
near to the embodiment of kingly power as the
sensitive spirits of the colonists were then will¬
ing to sanction.
To these important stations was elected Mes-
hech Ware, whose supreme loyalty and devotion
were unquestioned. During the eight and one
half years of the existence of this first plan of
government (1776-1784), he held, not only the
itaum l;
'1 . / ; ;> r. , ■ f: ;• .7 ' >bi;
- • > i V. * 'in .v ; ' fuob L • vis - ! •
" V‘ .
. ' . 1 - ; ■ > > o .
; ■ 2 i-RiMj* 'i<i 7. ' • - .1 ,nt>: .(
26
NEW HAMPSHIRE
combined positions of President of the upper
branch of the dual government and Chairman
of the Public Safety Committee, but also that
of the Chief Justice of the highest court. His
tempered and impartial administration did
much to allay the suspicions of the people, to
prepare them, later, to adopt an independent
executive branch of government and to finally
endow the incumbent thereof with larger
powers.
This period of repose under our very modest
plan of administration also enabled us to escape
experimentation with the many utopian and
fantastic ideas of government advanced during
that epoch in which constitution making was
receiving such universal attention. But the
plan of 1776, by its terms, was to endure only
“during the present unhappy and unnatural con¬
test with Great Britain,” and accordingly would
have expired in 1783. In anticipation of this
limitation, however, the consideration of a
more comprehensive form of government inter¬
mittently engaged the attention of our people
for fourteen years from 1778 to 1792. In order
to give adequate time to complete the consider¬
ation of a new constitution the old plan was re¬
vived and continued by the people for h year
beyond its prescribed limitation.
At the first session of a convention of delegates
from the towns held in 1778, the majority, after
arguments which lasted two days, were of the
opinion that it would be safer to leave the exe¬
cutive power, as it had been, in the hands of the
legislative branch than to have any chief magis¬
trate. In the two rejected drafts of a proposed
constitution submitted by the ^Convention of
1781 it was, however, proposed to invest the su-
t • I ti> :• h 'i ' •>■(? A' >‘
SESQUI-CENTENN1AL CELEBRATION
27
preme executive power in a “Governor.” In
the first report of this convention to the people
(1781) it was said of the proposed chief magis¬
trate of the state: “The convention **** have
thought it best to lodge the executive power in
one whom they have styled The Governor/ They
have, indeed, arrayed him with honors, they
have armed him with power, and set him on
high. But still he is only the right hand of your
power, and the mirror of your majesty.” But
the people would have none of it. This provision
was wholly rejected.
The continued popular distrust of an execu¬
tive was further evidenced by a provision in the
second rejected draft submitted to the people
in 1782, in which it was said, “To prevent an un¬
due influence in this state, which the first Mag¬
istrate thereof may acquire by long possession
of the important powers and trusts of that of¬
fice, as also to stimulate others to qualify them¬
selves for the service of the public in the highest
stations, no man shall be eligible as Governor
of this state more than three years in any
seven.” If such a stimulant was then neces¬
sary, as Prof. Colby suggests in his admirable
treatise on the constitution, it has not been evi¬
denced in the present generation by £ny scar¬
city of candidates. However, even with this
limitation, the proposal for a Governor was for
the second time rejected by the people.
Under the Constitution of 1784, which has
sometimes been called our “first permanent con¬
stitution,” which was adopted in 1783 and went
into effect on June 2, 1784 (after a Constitution¬
al Convention which lasted two years, held not
less than seven sessions and submitted to the
people two unacceptable drafts), the executive
i; • i
23
NEW HAMPSHIRE
power of the state in a limited form, was invest¬
ed in a President of the State of New Hamp¬
shire He was, however, given no veto power.
The President of the State was to preside over
the Senate and was given the same right to vote
therein as a Senator.
Thus, while for eight and one-half years,
from 1776 to 1784, the President of the upper
Legislative branch had been the acting execu¬
tive head for the succeeding period of eight
years from 1784 to 1792, we had the anomalous
situation of the Chief Executive of the State
presiding over the Senate. Under the so-called
permanent constitution whenever there was a
vacancy in the Presidency of the State it was
provided that the Senior Senator, for the time
being, should exercise such restricted powers as
the Chief Executive had been given under that
constitution.
In 1791 the Convention of that year proposed
seventy-two amendments to the Constitution of
1784. These were adopted, but only after radi¬
cal changes in their first draft had been accept¬
ed upon a re-submission to the people. Under
this amended constitution which became effec¬
tive in 1792 the executive power was finally in¬
vested, as now, in a Governor who by its terms
was to be addressed as “His Excellency,' ” while
the presidency of the Senate was to be filled by
election by the Senate of one of its own mem¬
bers, whose appellation was to be “His Honor.”
In these early essays in the evolution of the
executive branch there appear no suggestion in
the records of any attempt of our people to fol¬
low the more ambitious plan adopted by some of
our sister states, providing for a Lieutenant
Governor in the line of succession. It is a sig-
. ' •! I ;■
. ■ ■, . yJB-' 9 > i° =•' i;
'\i9t . •• ? o sc h r.i *aqH ‘ vlw.e-ind
-U‘ !qo v. > « i ■; i ; l« ‘tor. ••
SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
29
nificant fact that the Convention of 1781, which
copied largely from the Massachusetts constitu¬
tion omitted this provision altogether. It was
left to the Convention of 1852 first to make such
a proposal. But like all of the other amend¬
ments submitted by that Convention this pro¬
posal was rejected by the people.
Thus it comes about that the office of the
President of our Senate, as our organic law was
finally perfected, has carried in fact, though not
in name, the lieutenant governorship of our
State.
The time at my disposal forbids individual
references to the distinguished men who have
served the state in this capacity under our per¬
manent constitution. Suffice it to say that of
the eighty-nine men who have held the office,
several had been distinguished patriots of the
Revolution and others had taken prominent
part in the framing of the Constitution ; one had
served the state in a judicial capacity, and five
subsequently served upon the state’s highest
courts ; seventeen were later elected to the gov¬
ernorship of the State, three had previously
served in the Federal House of Representatives,
while ten were subsequently elected to Con¬
gress; three had previously served in the Feder¬
al Senate, while seven subsequently represented
the State in that august body. Certainly no bet¬
ter evidence is needed of the respect in which the
office of the President of the Senate has been
held by the electorate of the State.
■
30
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Address of Mrs. Mary I. Wood
• * »
Mr. Speaker and Friends:
I am very highly honored to be accorded a
place upon this program, with such a distin¬
guished group of gentlemen as these to whom
we are privileged to listen on this day, when
New Hampshire so proudly celebrates her Ses-
qui-Centennial of Independence.
If I had been allowed to choose my subject,
there is none upon which I would be so glad to
speak as the one assigned to me by the worthy
chairman of the program committee. There
will be much said, to-day and to-morrow, con¬
cerning those citizens of whom our state is just¬
ly proud, and I am glad that I may say just a
few words on behalf of the state’s interest in
that part of her population who, some for one
reason and some for another, falter by the way-
side and are not able to keep step with the van
guard.
Much credit is due to Mrs. Sarah G. Blodgett
for the agitation which resulted in the enact¬
ment of legislation establishing the State Board
of Charities and Correction. Whether her
own interest was due to the unenviable position
in which, according to the United States Cen¬
sus of 1890, New Hampshire found herself, or
because of the personal contact which Mrs.
Blodgett had with unfortunate cases, augment¬
ed by the long experience of her husband, Chief
Justice Blodgett, it is impossible to say, but it is
true that in the Census of 1890 New Hampshire
appeared as having the highest ratio of any
state, of children in almshouses in proportion
to her entire population viz : 46 children to every
100,000. Vermont came next with 27 to 100,000.
SESOUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
31
The same census report showed New Hamp¬
shire heading the list of states in the ratio of
paupers in almshouses to the entire population.
These startling statements from such a relia¬
ble source, together with much first-hand in¬
formation, led Mrs. Blodgett to travel the length
and breadth of the state to ascertain the loca¬
tion and care of such people as were, of neces¬
sity, because of affliction of mind or body, un¬
able to care for themselves.
The story of her findings, and the efforts put
forth by Mrs. Blodgett and her associates, is the
story of the inception of the organized effort to
bring about improved conditions which resulted
in the establishments of the State Board. Coun¬
ty farms were visited and jails were inspected
and many individual cases followed up by Mrs.
Blodgett in her search for data. To relate her
findings would far exceed the time accorded to
the entire program this afternoon. Let me cite
but two instances: one, a county farm where
every inmate save nine were feeble minded and
those nine were insane: the other a county farm
where four generations of one family were
housed: the great grandfather, a man past
seventy, thievish, dissolute, feebleminded, a pub¬
lic charge during practically his entire life, his
daughter, the mother of feeble-minded children
of whom one daughter, herself feebleminded,
was the mother of the five months old baby of
the fourth generation.
Whether this family was the one of whom I
recently heard it is said that a single family in
New Hampshire had cost the state $132,000, I
do not know, but I do know that there were
more than one family whose members have been
found in county almshouses, jails, the school for
32
NEW HAMPSHIRE
feebleminded, the insane hospital or state
prison, with the resultant expense of untold
thousand of dollars.
It seems like a long call from conditions such
as were found by those pioneer workers, to
the present time when no insane person may
be cared for in a county institution, but are all
under trained supervision and care at the State
Hospital; when no little child may remain at a
county farm for more than sixty days; when
provision is made for feeble minded men from
five to twenty-one years of age and feeblemind¬
ed women from five to forty-six (practically the
entire child bearing period of the women) in an
institution which is an honor to the state, at
the head of which is one of the finest of men
as well as one of the most able institution heads
of the country.
Mrs. Blodgett made her tour of investigation
in 1892: the Legislature of 1895 created the
Board of three men and two women to whom
were entrusted the welfare of these wards of
the state.
The members of the State Board of Charities
and Correction have included some of the
most distinguished of New Hampshire's sons
and daughters; men and women whose names
are written large in the history of the progress
of the state during the past thirty years. They
were such men as Oliver Gilman, John Kivel,
James F. Brennan, Oliver E. Branch, Sherman
E. Burroughs, Dn Charled ^Bancroft, Rev.
Father Brophy, Charles E. Tilton and others.
There were rare women also: Mrs. Julia Car¬
penter, whose name was known in every good
word and work; Mrs. Melusina Varick, leader
in all work of social progress in our largest city;
SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
33
Mrs. Lillian Streeter, who served as chairman
of the Board for many years and to whom our
state owes much for her devotion to its humani¬
tarian advancement; Mrs. Kate Howard Brown,
that staunch temperance worker for the north
country; Mrs. Ella H. Follansbee, the foster
mother of New Hampshire's orphan children
and the present members, whose works speak
daily in their praise. Nor would I feel that I
could leave the subject without a word regard¬
ing one who, while not a member of the Board,
has contributed more than all the members. I
refer to him to whom the office force refer lov¬
ingly as the “chief,” the Executive Secretary of
the Board to whom, whether at his desk direct¬
ing the work and giving advice, or in these legis¬
lative halls contributing his masterly influence
to the enactment of measures for the relief and
care of the State's most unfortunate wards, or
abroad in the state adjusting with county and
town authorities questions of vital importance,
at all times keen to the importance of the work
of the Board, I refer to William J. Ahern to
whom the state owes a debt which can never be
repaid.
Hon. William J. Ahern, Secretary * of the
State Board of Charities and Correction, vet¬
eran legislator, who has served longed in the
N. H. House of Representatives than any other
living man, and who was the Speaker of the
House in 1923, was next called upon, and spoke
extemporaneously in his usual bright and pleas¬
ing manner, expressing his satisfaction in being
able to participate in the exercises of the day,
recalling pleasant memories of the past, and
happily returning the compliment bestowed up-
1 i s'A v t ' * * > ^0*1 * a a 1 1 vii
34
NEW HAMPSHIRE
on him by the preceding speaker. Mr. Ahern
never prepares a speech, but readily speaks to
the point whenever occasion requires. As the
oldest and most experienced legislator in the
State, he received an ovation.
Address of Hon. Arthur G. Whittemore
Mr. Speaker and Fellow Citizens:
New Hampshire has the honor of being the
first of the states to adopt an independent gov¬
ernment, and to separate herself from the rule
of England. As the history of this event has
been told you by the gentlemen that have pre¬
ceded me I will not attempt to repeat and enum¬
erate those important events that led to the
adoption of New Hampshire’s Constitutional
Government.
From the history of the men and events lead¬
ing to the adoption of the constitution and in¬
dependent form of government of our state we
may draw inspiration and guidance. Let us
not forget that it is our duty to guard and pro¬
tect our state and its citizenry from being
merged and absorbed by the National Govern¬
ment. We have reached that point in the gov¬
ernment evolution where we had better pause
and consider whither we are drifting. Our
National Government is already overburdened
with problems not national, and if the states
which have been its support are destroyed the
result will be disastrous. It is the states which
give the country and the national government
stability, and are the chief strength against as¬
sault upon the liberties of the people. Study
the history of our country and in every instance
of its peril it has been the states on which the
fill • b . I < :1 <> f( f t.5 'j.l f! t 1
35
• 1771.832
SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
National Government depended. When the
Civil War broke upon us had not the forces and
organizations of the several states come to its
rescue the result of that great war would have
been doubtful, for the national government was
honeycombed with secession, weak and helpless.
Has the day dawned, when the states which
comprise these United States, are unable or un¬
willing to manage those vital matters which
pertain to the personal wants and conduct of its
citizens not related to national affairs? It was
recently said by President Coolidge in an ad¬
dress delivered on an occasion similar to this,
“We must also recognize that the national ad¬
ministration is not and can not be adjusted to
the needs of local government. It is too far
away to be informed of local needs, too inacces¬
sible to be responsive to local conditions.”
I am convinced that we must call a halt in
the present tendency of the times or, in a few
years, we shall have transformed the entire
structure of this government as designed by
our forefathers. There is too much paternal¬
ism to-day in modern legislation. We are tak¬
ing from the citizen too much of his responsi¬
bility, which if continued, will make him a de¬
pendent and thus will destroy his capacity for
self government.
As a matter of fact a citizen without re¬
sponsibility ceases to be a citizen and becomes a
subject. We do not want subjects, we want
citizens of the same type that organized New
Hampshire's first independent government
which we are celebrating here to-day.
All honor to the great and good men, found¬
ers of our state.
vr,s ■; /
r / 1
■
ikt., • !! i (
■ •>!> a mi l s;ls i . v jwmtJitoa rfvisi » ,v!iltcf
.v*i >-oi fwad sffliifc'icaba <rut aw rf- i rl v
36
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Address of Hon. Albert 0. Brown
Mr. Speaker, Ladies and Gentlemen:
The several state constitutions which so readi¬
ly appeared in the revolutionary period of our
history were not the result wholly or chiefly of
contemporaneous inspiration or study. Many
of their provisions were derived from the royal
charters under which the English colonies in
America had been created and governed. These
in turn can be traced back to beginnings as re¬
mote and obscure as those of the English law in
general. In some states these early charters
were themselves treated as constitutions long
after independence had been declared and un¬
til others had been adopted in their stead. This
was true in Massachusetts for a number of
years, in Connecticut for almost half a century
and in Rhode Island for nearly two generations.
The constitution under which we lived during
the seven years of conflict with the mother coun¬
try, and which was continued for a year there¬
after, was more nearly original than most others
of revolutionary production.
This constitution of less than one thousand
words devoted more than a quarter of its space
to expressions of protest, justification and the
hope of reconciliation. It may be said with
candor that there probably never was greater
need of explanation and defense on the eve of
revolt than in the case of New Hampshire. For
a century and a half her brave and hardy people
had been contented and happy, with few of
those bickerings with the representatives of
royalty so common elsewhere. They had en¬
gaged in no religious controversies or civil con¬
tention of consequence. They had been too busy
1 s h ' V" I i‘.r , \ ■ > 'i
SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
37
in forcing a reluctant livelihood from field and
forest to quarrel among themselves. As com¬
rades in arms they had opposed the savage peril
that never for a moment was absent until the
close of the French and Indian War. Upon the
removal of that menace the province settled
down to enjoy a long peace under the mild and
enlightened rule of the last of the royal gov¬
ernors, the much beloved but later proscribed
Sir John Wentworth, a native of New Hamp¬
shire and always solicitous for her welfare.
Eight years of prosperity ensued.
Under these circumstances it is not strange
that the people of New Hampshire preferred to
remain loyal to their King. But their desire in
this regard was overcome by their sympathy
for the other colonists who had suffered much
while they had suffered little from British mis¬
rule. So they cast their lot with them and be¬
came leaders in the struggle for independence.
This early constitution was promulgated on
the day whose anniversary we celebrate. It
was a war measure. The feature of the instru¬
ment was the creation of a legislature to which
it committed almost absolute power to be trans¬
ferred, as it proved, to a small committee of
safety sitting for the greater part of the time.
Thus was afforded as fine an example of cen¬
tralization and efficiency in government as the
western world has supplied.
So New Hampshire came to have a written
constitution, the first adopted by any American
colony. That it was conceived more in sorrow
than in anger is evident from its express refer¬
ence to reconciliation with the “parent state.”
But the hope of so happy an outcome, generally
entertained at the time, was extinguished by
38
NEW HAMPSHIRE
the events of the next few months and in the
following June, three weeks in advance of fed¬
eral action, New Hampshire declared for the
independence of the colonies. Free government
under a written constitution and a declaration
of independence in the same year made 1776
memorable in this state.
The declaration, after a recital of wrongs,
contained instructions to the congressional del¬
egates to join with their colleagues in “declar¬
ing the thirteen United Colonies, a free and in¬
dependent State.” It also contained a pledge of
the faith and honor of the people that they
would support this measure with their lives and
fortunes.
Did New Hampshire keep the faith of the
obligations involved in these two immortal un¬
dertakings? The facts should answer. Her
reduction of Fort William and Mary at New¬
castle was an earnest in advance of her obser-
ance of later pledges. Her contributions to
Bunker Hill were in part performance of sub¬
sequent promises. And they were of incalcu¬
lable worth, including the officer with the larg¬
est command, a majority of the troops engaged,
most of the powder burned and even the use of
the field on which the battle was fought. Be¬
fore her marksmen England’s best were piled in
windrows.
“For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass’d.”
At Bennington, the Gettysburg of the revolu¬
tion, there was further performance. For that
engagement New Hampshire furnished the
commanding officer and most of the men. In
fine she acquitted herself like “a party to the
contest” in every campaign and upon almost
SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
39
every field from that where McClary was killed
to that where Scammell fell. And her achieve¬
ments on the sea were not less glorious than on
the land.
With the first dawn of peace the impoverish¬
ed state began the framing of a permanent con¬
stitution. But constitution making is a slow
and deliberate process and it was not until 1784
that she was able, even with the aid of the Mass¬
achusetts compact which was freely copied, to
formulate and establish her fundamental law.
Seven years later this was so far perfected by
amendment that a period of eighty-five years
then elapsed with but a single alteration.
Since that alteration a few long agitated
changes have been made in that part of the con¬
stitution devoted to the form of government, of
which the previsions abolishing religious and
property tests for office and authorizing the de¬
cision of elections by a plurality of votes are ex¬
amples. The bill of rights also has been amend¬
ed, but only in regard to the qualification of
voters and the trial of small cases. Qur people
have hesitated to question the inherent and “un¬
alienable” rights of man set forth in their bill as
well as enumerated, for a large part, in many
noble declarations from the Great Charter down
to the American constitutions, albeit there are
some blemishes in the record.
It is said our constitution is so slow and diffi¬
cult of amendment that it cannot be kept abreast
of the needs of the state in her progress. It was
not intended by its framers that it should be im¬
mediately responsive to public opinion and thus
become encumbered by other than fundamental
and enduring provisions. As a safeguard against
this danger the convention method of amend-
40
NEW HAMPSHIRE
ment, with its assurance of time and delibera¬
tion, has been exclusively adhered to by New
Hampshire, alone of all the states.
The need of amendment is often obviated by
judicial application and interpretation. A club
to conduct horse races was incorporated under
a legislative charter whose provisions were ex¬
pected to exempt those placing bets upon the
sport from criminal punishment here, as like
provisions had done in New York. But in view
of the constitutional rule of uniformity and
equality of privilege the justices of the supreme
court were enabled to suggest an interpretation
of the charter that permitted no exemption and
abated a great nuisance. It was sought to im¬
pose a flat tax for the improvement of the high¬
ways upon gasolene sold in this state. The jus¬
tices advised in substance that while the desired
assessment could not be levied as a tax it might
with slight modification be collected as a toll.
Thus the constitutional rule of proportion was
avoided and the fact that “a rose by any other
name would smell as sweet, ” illustrated, ^hen
it became essential in the public interest to sus¬
tain a tax on incomes the court found that full
authority had long resided in the constitution.
Indeed that instrument is much less rigid than
it -seems to be, for the rules of conduct and the
principles of government enunciated therein are
largely general in their terms and therefore in
the main applicable to the varying conditions
not only of a day or a generation but of all time.
Through the years the New Hampshire con¬
stitution has performed its work admirably.
With its unlimited power of orderly amend¬
ment by the people, and its ample capacity for
reasonable interpretation by the court, it should
SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
41
not be less adequate and useful in the future
than in the past.
Address of Hon. Fred H. Brown
Mr. Speaker, Ladies and Gentlemen:
I appreciate the honor of being invited to ad¬
dress this distinguished gathering, and I am
glad of an opportunity to say something about
the work of the public service commission ; but
I am well aware that the greatest service I can
render the public at this time is to surrender
my commission as an orator after a very few
minutes.
The public service commission, under that
name, is one of the youngest of all the New
Hampshire state commissions. Its board of
three commissioners has had but six members
in the fifteen years of its existence. But the
principle of state regulation and supervision of
public service corporations goes back, in New
Hampshire, almost a century, to 1838, when the
Legislature passed an act authorizing the gov¬
ernor and council to appoint railroad commis¬
sioners, three for each county in the state.
That would have given each commissioner about
as much railroad to look after as a section fore¬
man has to-day.
This arrangement soon was found to be im¬
practicable and a state railroad commission was
substituted. From 1855 to 1883 the members
of this commission were elected by popular vote.
Since the latter date they have been appointed
by the governor and council.
The list of 51 railroad commissioners given
in the official manual of the state includes two
governors, Person C. Cheney and Benjamin F.
• i I >• t
42
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Prescott; a Congressman, Orren C. Moore; and
many other men whose names are famous for
other reasons than this particular official con¬
nection. This surely can be said of the oldest
surviving railroad commissioner, Hon. Alvah
W. Sulloway, of Franklin.
The change in name of the railroad commis¬
sion to public service commission is one of the
myriad circumstances which go to prove or to
illustrate the development of our civilization.
When the public service commission was con¬
stituted, it was directed, in the statute which
give it life, to be the intermediary between the
public and not only the railroads, but also the
gas, electricity and water companies, the tele¬
graph and telephone companies and other pub¬
lic utilities.
It takes a great many pages of the public
laws to tell what the public service commission
shall do, and when, where, why and how it may
act. And yet we do not find in these recently
compiled statutes any specific direction as to
what we shall do about boats, dams, motor
busses or superpower.
Probably many of you have been in contact,
in one way or another, with the public service
commission in action. So that, even if time al¬
lowed, I would not be justified in wearying you
with an account of what the public service com¬
mission has accomplished in its comparatively
brief life; of its workings or its problems.
We are talking this week in units of a hun¬
dred and fifty years, not of fifteen ; but even in
this latter period we have seen a great change in
the transportation problems of this state.
When the public service commission was creat¬
ed, one at least of the objects said to be behind
SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
43
its origin was to keep the railroads from play¬
ing too large a part in the affairs of New Hamp¬
shire. Now we are trying to devise some way
to keep them from playing too small a part in
the work of the commonwealth. But this is the
exception to the rule. For the most part the
private luxuries of yesterday are the public
utilities of to-day. The frosting on the cake is
thicker than it used to be, even though those
who dance find they must pay well the fiddler,
old-fashioned or jazz. To-day we are in a state
of transition, as regards public utilities. We
do not know what the near future may bring
forth as to developments in transportation, in
communication, in the creation, transmission
and use of power.
It is not probable that in any of these lines
New Hampshire can be near the front in the
march of progress. In my opinion we cannot
afford to pay for even a modest part of the ex¬
perimenting which is going to be done in the
next decade in these departments. Our state
is small and poor, lovely and lively and desirable
as it is. We cannot be happy and prosperous
with an increasing tax burden. Nor shall we
play fair with coming generations if we leave it
to them to pay for our mistakes in gauging the
future. Let the great states, our rich sisters,
furnish the laboratories and do the experiment¬
ing. And when they have answered the ques¬
tions which the Twentieth Century is asking,
then let us take all possible advantage of their
discoveries, as quickly and as largely as may be.
I know the public service commission will wel¬
come the day when every New Hampshire farm¬
er has cheap and rapid means of getting his pro¬
ducts to market and all the aid which electric
. • > * ' I ' . ' ■
4!
NEW HAMPSHIRE
power can lend to his labors. We all desire to
make access to our wonderful scenery as easy
and enjoyable as possible. We wish to make
New Hampshire more than ever a land of happy
homes, fertile farms and famous factories.
Hasten the day of all these things, but let us
not try to force their blooming with richer fer¬
tilizer than we can afford to apply.
Address of Hon. Huntley N. Spaulding
Mr. Speaker, Fellow Citizens of New Hamp¬
shire :
It is a real privilege to be here this afternoon
and participate in these exercises which com¬
memorate the 150th birthday anniversary of
our State. I am particularly pleased to stand
here as a representative of the State Board of
Education, a department which to my mind is
one of the most important in the State.
The founders of our Republic recognized the
necessity of properly educating the youth of
the land if our country was to endure through¬
out the forthcoming generations. George
Washington, in his farewell address of 1796,
spoke of the great necessity of properly educat¬
ing future generations, and John Jay, the first
Chief Justice of the United States, said that he
considered knowledge to be “the soul of the
Republic.” It was the fourth President of the
United States, James Madison, who wrote “a
popular government without proper informa¬
tion or the means of acquiring it is but a pro¬
logue to a farce or a tragedy.”
While these forefathers realized, as indivi¬
duals, the importance of education, it is a fact
that there was no real national educational con¬
sciousness until about 1820, forty-four years af-
' I •• V'"» •< * J udi io >;(. qg
SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
45
ter New Hampshire became a state. Thaddeus
Stevens, who did more towards establishing the
public schools than any other individual, spoke
in defense of the Pennsylvania educational bill,
passed in 1834 before the Legislature of that
state.
At that time he said in part: — “If an elective
Republic is to endure for any length of time,
every elector must have sufficient information
not only to accumulate wealth and take care
of his pecuniary concerns, but to direct wisely
the legislature, the ambassadors, and the Ex¬
ecutive of the Nation — for some part of all these
things, some agency in approving or disapprov¬
ing of them, falls to every free man. If, then,
the permanency of our Government depends
upon such knowledge, it is the duty of Govern¬
ment to see that the means of information be
diffused to every citizen. This is a sufficient
answer to those who deem education a private
and not a public duty.” Abraham Lincoln, when
a candidate for the Illinois Legislature in 1832,
stated that he believed education to be the most
important subject which we as a people could
be engaged in, and said that every man should
receive a proper education in order to appre¬
ciate the value of our free institutions.
As changes have occurred in our country
since the time of Lincoln, the public school sys¬
tem has been changed to meet the need. It has
now become a generally accepted idea in the
United States that the proper unit for educa¬
tion should be the state. New Hampshire
adopted this principle, in a small way, as far
back as 1847, when John W. Rust was chosen
Commissioner of Education. He served for
three years after which ten commissioners of
. ...o i), -
■
46
NEW HAMPSHIRE
education were appointed, one for each county.
In 1860 New Hampshire changed back to the
system of one Commissioner of Education for
the entire state.
It was not- until 1919 that a law was passed
in New Hampshire giving any real centralized
state authority over our entire public school
system. Since this time we have made great
strides in public educational work in this state.
We have practically succeeded in equalizing the
educational opportunities of . children in city
and rural districts. This, has been one of the
outstanding features of our work.
One of the chief factors in bringing about
this equalization of educational opportunities
has been the State superintendents. There are in
New Hampshire sixty-four supervisory unions,
so divided that each rural section has practical¬
ly the same attention as a city section. The
public school work in each district is now super¬
vised by a high grade superintendent, who must
have had a college education and at least five
years of successful teaching experience.
Our Normal Schools, now under the direct
charge of the State Board of Education, are at
the present time graduating enough students to
fill the vacancies in public school teaching staffs
throughout the state. So in addition to pro¬
viding proper supervision, we have made un¬
usual progress in the direction of furnishing
properly trained teachers for all of our public
schools.
In 1919 there were 924 schools that had school
years of less than thirty-six weeks, and some
schools had as low as sixteen to twenty weeks in
their respective school years. Last year there
were only twenty schools with less than thirty-
SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
47
six weeks in their school years. In 1919 we had
only 240 students attending our Normal Schools,
and this year 860 pupils were registered at these
important institutions where we train our
teachers. In 1919 one third of our teachers
were Normal School graduates and as we have
already noted, at present we are graduating
enough teachers from Normal Schools to fill all
vacancies in the state. One of the serious
things connected wtih a good school system is
the changes made during the school year by
resignations of teachers. In 1918 we had 540
changes in teaching staffs throughout the state
during the school year, but last year, we had
only 109 such changes. Seven years ago less than
one-third of our children had medical attention
while to-day they all have it. In 1919 we had
approximately 500 school buildings in the State
of New Hampshire which were considered un¬
suitable for school purposes. At the present
time we have seventy-five unfit buildings.
In 1919 people were leaving our State in order
that they might give their children a better ed¬
ucation. To-day we are inviting them to come
to New Hampshire to enjoy the school privi¬
leges which we can now offer them. I believe
the State of New Hampshire has made genuine
progress during the recent years along the lines
of public education.
Our system is built on a solid foundation and
it should continue to be a real service in pro¬
ducing that splendid type of men and women
citizens for which New Hampshire has been
noted since it was founded 150 years ago.
Daniel Webter, one of New Hampshire’s most
illustrious sons, must have had education in
mind when he said: —
48
NEW HAMPSHIRE
“If we work upon marble, it will perish; if
we work upon brass, time will efface it; if we
rear temples, they will crumble into dust; but
if we work upon immortal minds, if we imbue
them with principles, with the just fear of God
and love of our fellowmen, we engrave on those
tablets something which will brighten to all
eternity.”
/ V , !-j . . . ' ! t V
SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
49
Wednesday, June 2, Anniversary Day
The day opened auspiciously, so far as weath¬
er conditions were concerned, and long before
the hour set for the spectacular feature of the
Celebration, — the School Parade — North State,
North Main and Pleasant Streets, included in
the line of march, were lined with thousands
of people, anxiously awaiting the appearance of
the 3,000 pupils of the various grades, who had
manifestly been thoroughly drilled for the oc¬
casion, and whose splendid marching, as they
proceeded over the line, contributed as much to
elicit the continuous applause with which they
were greeted, as did the colorful picture pre¬
sented by their neat costumes, waving flags and
banners. Different periods of history were de¬
picted by different elementary schools, and
numerous handsome floats greatly enhanced the
attractiveness of the parade, which was gener¬
ally pronounced the finest even seen in Concord.
There was an ample supply of music, the band
of the 197th Artillery, N. H. N. G., leading the
march, and Nevers’ Second Infantry, and the
High School bands also in line, also a group of
bagpipers from Manchester. The Concord
Board of Education, including its woman mem¬
bers, and the Superintendents, occupied an ap¬
propriate place in the line, and the various
teachers accompanied their several schools.
The thanks of the Commission are due, in
large measure, not only to the schools of Con¬
cord and Penacook (which latter participated
in the parade) but particularly to the Concord
Board of Education, and Superintendent Louis
J. Rundlett, dean of the Superintendents of the
State, under whose authority and supervision,
• .i ■: •< 1J •' i i s rr r . •
50
NEW HAMPSHIRE.
this magnificent parade was organized and car¬
ried out.
Mayor Fred N. Marden and the members of
the Commission officially reviewed the parade
from the balcony of the Eagle Hotel.
After the parade a final meeting of the Com¬
mission was held in the parlor, at the Eagle, at
which it was voted that the President, Secre¬
tary and Treasurer be authorized to make all
settlements and close the affairs of the Com¬
mission.
At the noon hour, upon invitation of Governor
Winant, a dinner was enjoyed at a special table
in the Eagle dining room, bv the members of
the Commission and the speakers of the day.
At 1:30 P. M., in Representatives Hall, as an¬
nounced in the programme, the anniversary ex¬
ercises were duly carried out. The chairman of
the Programme Committee called to order and
presented Governor Winant as President of the
Day, who opened the exercises with fitting con¬
gratulatory remarks, and happily introduced
the several speakers in the order announced.
The Invocation by Dr. McCollester was elo¬
quent and impressive, the musical numbers were
effectively rendered and the Benediction by Rev.
William Porter Niles brought the service to a
fitting close.
The addresses of the afternoon follow in the
order given:
. )'x ,'■> ■ >' • r>
i •. *i V >0 '■ ’ 3
SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
51
ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS
By James A. Tufts, LL.D.
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen :
We are met to celebrate the one hundred and
fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of in¬
dependent government in New Hampshire,
done at Exeter, January 6, 1776. The year is
notable for both state and nation. We may
feel justly proud that ours was the first state
to adopt a written constitution, four months be¬
fore that of Virginia, and six months before
the Declaration of Independence was signed.
The first observance of this anniversary was
by the Exeter Chapter of the Daughters of the
American Revolution, on the 4th of last Janu¬
ary. The exercises consisted of speaking,
music, and tableaux appropriate for (the oc¬
casion. A little later came celebrations by the
Exeter Chamber of Commerce and the Congre¬
gational Church.
Though this is not an historical address, it
seems fitting to refer to the condition of affairs
in the state one hundred and fifty years ago, and
to touch upon the importance of Exeter at that
time. Exeter had played an important part un¬
der the Provincial Government. Its people had
shown resistance to illegal taxation and had
made demonstration against the Stamp Act;
yet many of the inhabitants had signed a pact
to preserve the peace and good order of the
community, and had shown their patriotism on
several occasions. Exeter was virtually the
capital of the state, the seat of government, and
the centre of civil and military activity.
“There,” as an esteemed townsman says, “the
9 ■ '
52
NEW HAMPSHIRE
state of New Hampshire came into existence
and all the early legislation originated.” And
he adds, “To Exeter the patriots, to Concord
the politicians !” There still stands the house,
now owned by the New Hampshire Society of
the Cincinnati, where the Committee of Safety
held its meetings, then occupied by Nicholas
Gilman, the Receiver General, and used as the
State Treasury. Much important business was
transacted there. From this house, we are told,
“went forth the summons for that brief ses¬
sion of the General Court held on July 17, 1777,
at which John Langdon made the stirring
pledge of all his propertly, including the hogs¬
heads of rum, to be sold in order to outfit the
state forces that marched with Stark to Ben¬
nington,^ ” whose victory meant so much.
Our ancestors thus early showed their spirit
of independence. It is not strange, therefore,
when the form of government established by
Great Britain came to an end, that, Governor
Wentworth having fled from the colony, the
people undertook to govern themselves. They
faced the problem, how to pass from a colonial
status, within an empire, to that of a free and
independent state. A Convention met in Exe¬
ter in ,May 1775, composed of delegates from
one hundred and two towns. It provided that
the electors of representatives to the Conven¬
tion called to establish a form of government
should possess real estate of at least £20 in
value, and that each candidate for representa¬
tive should possess real estate of the value of
£300; that towns should be entitled to one repre¬
sentative for each group of one hundred fami¬
lies ; and that the representatives should be em¬
powered by their constituents to assume gov-
j , '*?■ . L ' t
. / I 5 ■ r . .
SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
53
ernment as recommended by the general con¬
gress. Representatives thus chosen met in con¬
vention or congress, as they termed it, at Exe¬
ter, and on January 6, 1776, adopted a plan of
government, the first written Constitution. The
committee appointed to draw it up Should
be named: Matthew Thornton, Meshech Weare,
Ebenezer Thompson, Wyseman Claggett, Ben¬
jamin Giles, and later John Giddings, of Exeter,
and Joseph Badger. This Constitution is very
brief — not a thousand words, and nearly half
of them in the preamble. The preamble sets
forth some of the wrongs the people had suf¬
fered under British rule, notes the fact of the
sudden departure of Governor Wentworth and
the absence of legislative and executive authori¬
ty, and continues : “Therefore for the preserva¬
tion of peace and good order, and for the se¬
curity of the lives and properties of the inhabi¬
tants of this colony, we conceive ourselves re¬
duced to the necessity of establishing a form of
government, to continue during the present un¬
happy and unnatural contest with Great Brit¬
ain, protesting and declaring that we never
sought to throw off our dependence upon Great
Britain, but felt ourselves happy under her pro¬
tection while we could enjoy our Constitutional
rights and privileges, and that we shall rejoice
if such a reconciliation between us and our pa¬
rent state can be effected as shall be approved
by the continental congress, in whose prudence
and wisdom we confide.”
Its first provision was as follows: “According¬
ly, pursuant to the trust imposed in us, we do
resolve that this congress assume the name,
power, and authority of a house of represen¬
tatives, or assembly for the colony of New
©I • « ' fli I hn- >ri (ttoisufw i
.amuri » i) mskisbs a? ah r jb,d wii ^- r
54
NEW H AMPS El IRE
Hampshire. And that said house then proceed
to choose twelve persons being reputable free¬
holders and inhabitants within this colony .
to be a distinct and separate branch of the legis¬
lature, by the name of a council; ”
I pass over its other provisions except to note
the absence of any mention of an executive and
of all restraint upon council and assembly,
which had full power to exercise all the legisla¬
tive, executive, and judicial functions of gov¬
ernment, a plan said to be favored by Franklin
and Samuel Adams, and adopted in the first
Constitutions of Pennsylvania and Georgia.
This Constitution, adopted as a temporary
measure, went into effect without being sub¬
mitted to the people and remained in force for
eight years. Meanwhile the name was changed
from the colony to the state of New Hampshire.
The fact that civil government was maintain¬
ed so long under a Constitution so weak and
imperfect, and during the Revolutionary War,
proves that the people, though having rebelled
against the existing government, were natural¬
ly law-abiding. With such a man as Meshech
Weare as President of the Council, Chairman
of the Committee, of Safety, and Chief Justice,
trusted by all, any Constitution would have
worked.
In time, however, changes became necessary.
A second Constitutional Convention met in Con¬
cord in June, 1778, and a third in 1781. The
second Constitution was rejected by the people,
but that submitted by the third convention in
its last draft (the early drafts were called too
conservative), was approved in 1783 and went
into effect in 1784.
The first draft of this Constitution, really the
! ■
SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
55
second and last Constitution adopted, sprang
from the masterly mind of John Adams, who
rather boastfully declared that he had drawn
a Constitution for Massachusetts which finally
made the Constitution of the United States.
The details of the plan were similar to those of
the Massachusetts Constitution. The govern¬
ment was divided into three distinct depart¬
ments, the legislative, the executive, and the
judicial, each independent of the others. In the
first drafts the chief executive was called “gov¬
ernor,” in the last, “president.” He was to
preside in the senate, and had the same right to
vote as the senators had. He was not restrict¬
ed to lobbying, therefore, to influence senators.
This Constitution gave the franchise to all males
of twenty-one years or more who paid a poll
tax and had lived two years in their towns.
Another Constitutional Convention met in
Concord in 1791. Of the seventy-two amend¬
ments submitted, only forty-six were approved
by the people. By these amendments His Ex¬
cellency was called “governor” instead of “pres¬
ident,” and he lost the right to sit and vote in
the senate.
The next Constitutional Convention was not
held for nearly sixty years, in 1850. Franklin
Pierce was the president and Col. Thomas J.
Whipple the sceretary. This Convention pro¬
posed many radical changes, among them the
adoption of biennial elections and biennial ses¬
sions of the legislature. Only one, however,
was approved by the people, that abolishing the
property qualification of candidates for gover¬
nor, senators, and representatives.
The fifth Constitutional Convention, held in
Concord in 1876, is noteworthy for its short
• ..Jot i ! li I to ' X,/ )
56
NEW HAMPSHIRE
session, only eleven days, and for its achieve¬
ments, among which were the abolition of the
religious test as a qualification for office, the
adoption of biennial elections and biennial ses¬
sions of the legislature, the change in the time
of holding state elections from March to Novem¬
ber, the increase of the senate from twelve to
twenty-four members, and a reduction in the
number of representatives.
The session of the sixth Constitutional Con¬
vention, 1889, was also brief. Governor Charles
H. Bell, of Exeter, was its president. Its prin¬
cipal acts made Article Six of the Bill of Rights
non-sectarian and changed the time of biennial
sessions of the legislature from June to Jan¬
uary. Only one of the seven amendments pro¬
posed was rejected.
The more recent Conventions are too fresh
in mind to require mention. These that I have
cited, with the comparatively few amendments
adopted, show both that our original Constitu¬
tion had serious defects, and also that we 'are
inclined to regard a Constitution as sacred.
We should remember the words of William H.
Seward, “There is a higher law than the Con-
stitution.” We should remember also that Con¬
stitutional Conventions are not called at the
pleasure of the governor, but that, by the terms
of our Constitution, we are obliged to vote on
the subject every seven years.
Our Constitution is not yet perfect. For ex¬
ample, many think that our house of represen¬
tatives is altogether too large for securing the
best membership and the best results. Accord¬
ing to the first draft of the Constitution submit¬
ted by the Convention of 1781, the number
should be fifty. Though this number would be
SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
57
too small now, the present number, four hun¬
dred and twenty-one, seems too large. Yet so
far it has proved impossible to amend the Con¬
stitution so as to reduce this number. May we
not do well to try again to find some way to re¬
duce the number without depriving the small
towns of representation?
There are other important subjects, how¬
ever, — the relation between capital and labor,
the prevention of monopolies and strikes, the
crime wave, the atheistic ripple, religious free¬
dom and the danger of legislation that will
abridge this freedom. In regard to the last
point a recent writer has said, “Youth .
becomes the victim of compulsion from those
who have a fixed belief — impervious to the
known facts of science and history — which they
insist upon everyone else’s believing too. It is
religious intolerance of a diabolical kind, since
it attacks the immature child, seeking to stunt
his plastic mind to a fixed gauge as narrow as
that of his oppressors.” Our legislators should
check this attempt to destroy the spirit of de¬
mocracy. All should strive to keep education
free from the hand of religious intolerance. We
should work to preserve both political and spir¬
itual liberty. Freedom is not self-perpetuating.
In our pride that the first written state con¬
stitution was signed in Exeter, we should re¬
member that it was the natural outgrowth of
the character of our Puritan ancestors, whom
Macaulay called “the most remarkable body of
men, perhaps, which the world has ever pro¬
duced,” and whom, in spite of their outward pe¬
culiarities, he pronounced “a brave, a wise, an
honest, and a useful body.”
The interest and patriotism of our ancestors
,i ji:i i ■
58
NEW HAMPSHIRE
did not rest with the adoption of the Constitu¬
tion. Our delegates to the Continental Con¬
gress had been instructed to join with the other
colonies in declaring the thirteen United Col¬
onies free and independent States. All were
impatient to learn the action of the Continental
Congress in regard to the final separation from
Great Britain. Imagine, if you can, the ex¬
citement when a courier rode into town, bring¬
ing a packet which proved to be the Declaration
of Independence. The news spread rapidly.
Men, women, and children gathered to listen to
the first reading with devout thankfulness,
great faith, and honest pride. And our state
became one of the original thirteen.
I will not dwell on the visits to Exeter of
Samuel Adams, George Washington, and Abra¬
ham Lincoln, important as they were ; but must
remind you of the assertion of Robert T. Lin¬
coln: “If I had not come to The Phillips Exeter
Academy, I doubt whether my father would
ever have been President of the United States.”
And Daniel Webster! How fitting that his
statue should stand directly in front of this
building! It is hard to believe that he was ever
an awkward, country boy, often sent by ■ his
teacher to the brook to wash his face and hands.
At Exeter he failed in declamation, but learned
many lessons not found in books. How fitting,
too, that his bust should be placed in the Hall
of Fame in New York City!
We honor our ancestors. They lived in an
a ee of revolution; we live in an age of evolution.
We are grateful to them for all that they did,
much under trying circumstances. If we think
that our conditions are hard, we should remem¬
ber that theirs were harder. Yet, in the words
' . ii ; t v / ■ V Js; i ' r, ■
SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
59
of Judge Chase, “The millenium is still far dis¬
tant. There is opportunity and necessity for
study and efforts by this and many future gen¬
erations to improve temporal government. The
results will depend largely upon the education
and moral sense of the community. The church
and the schools are the most effective institu¬
tions in the great work. When knowledge and
learning, in a large and broad sense, have be¬
come generally diffused through the community,
and the moral sense of its members has become
sensitive to the requirments of the Golden
Rule” (which enjoins men and women to seek
the good of the whole of humanity) “and
causes willing compliance therewith, most of
the defects in government will cease, and the
dawn of the millennium will be reached.”
Finally, in the words of the great optimist,
Charles W. Eliot, president emeritus of Har¬
vard University, “The republic is not an experi¬
ment, it is a fact; it can even withstand the out¬
bursts of the superheated patriots, who are
mere jingoes masquerading as statesmen and
leaders. Democracy has proved itself in
America ; for, with all the little faults we make
and magnify, our country is the most blessed on
earth.”
»j‘. • ■ • >< i 1 na'-v. <: < ; .« a
I > fl A •>, l'j-1 ;■ * ! :! ’ i>* ’
I . I ■<: v in-. ; ■ f i 'f t
60
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Anniversary Poem
By Rev. Raymond H. Huse
Old man of the mountain,
Looking over hills of green,
During all these swiftly passing years
Tell us what you’ve seen
Since the nature-loving red man
Shouldered first his borrowed gun,
Then, as silent as the shadows,
Pilgrimed westward with the sup.
Tell us how the sons of thunder
Harnessed then each rushing stream ;
Changed to teeming, smoking cities
Vales where woodsprites used to dream.
Homes then took the place of cabims,
Hills were crowned with schools and spires.
Floods of light and power and progress
Quenched the slowly dying fires
Of the camper and the pilgrim;
Rails of iron bridged the streams,
Locomotives climbed the mountains,
Visions took the place of dreams,
Swift achievement followed vision ;
Soon the hilltops, crowned with morn,
Heard the cheerful chugging challenge
Of the automobile horn.
Gone the power of miles and distance ;
Give us roads all smooth and hard
And old Hampton by the ocean
Is in Washington’s front yard!
Even the sky above your forehead
Cleft by eagles’ wings of old
Is now beaten by the pinions
Of the airplane, swift and bold,
While the winds that sweep your valleys
Bring us from some Broadway attic
Speeches, songs, orchestral music,
Boom of bass drum, horn and static.
Old man of the mountain,
Guardian of primeval lumber,
In this busy generation
SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
61
Aren’t you almost a back number ?
Don’t you feel abashed and humbled,
Up there ’mid the silent hills
While the sound of human progress
Every town and city fills ?
And the Granite State with others,
On this happy natal day,
Sings its song of glad achievement
And with joy pursues its way
From the frontier and the backwoods
To the city made of gold
Of which the poets and the prophets
Through the twilight years have told?
Then replied the Silent Watcher
Of Franconia’s shaded deeps,
He who, like the God of heaven,
Never slumbers, never sleeps.
O you little puny rhymster,
With your little childish dreams,
Listen while 1 truly tell you
How this noisy progress seems
As I watch it from my hilltop
While the ages slip away,
For a thousand years in passing
Are to me hut as a day,
As a watch in midnight stillness,
As a iswiftly melting cloud,
And I often ask the question,
“Why should mortal man be proud ?’’
Glad I am to see the cities
Rise where wigwams used to be,
But I do not call it progress
If the folks are not more free,
If where red man’s poisoned arrow
Sped its trail of grief and death
Now the hand of greed and hatred
And foul slander’s hellish breath
Sparing decently men’s bodies
Kill their souls — what is the gain?
Why is this a big improvement
Over heaps of bodies slain?
I. , f': v
62
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Good it is that automobiles
Speeding swiftly to and fro
Banished have our isolation
And the world its own may know.
But unless as better neighbors
Kind in spirit and in heart
We may dwell in peace together
We had better stay apart.
Hermit minds need hermit bodies !
Where there’s snobbery between
No one can fill up the spaces
With a tank of gasolene.
Let them go by wheels or airplane
On the road, or up above,
If they bring to every nation
Hands that help and hearts that love.
But if selfishness still lingers
Like a boarder in the fall
Let us he “Irreconciliables”
And erect a Chinese wall !
That the wireless brings its message
Over land and over sea
Is a marvel that brings wonder
Even to a Man like me !
But the wonder is that people
Now that sound waves, like the spray,
Splash their message through the silence
Llave so little new to say !
Stock reports and bed time stories
Through the mystic midnight come
Weather records, base hall battings
— And the prophets still are dumb!
£ffl
SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
63
Address of Rev. Burton W. Lockhart
[Dr. Lockhart sazv fit to change the subject of his ad¬
dress from “New Hampshire and the Christian 'Ministry’' to
“The Clergy and The Sesqui-Centennial.” \
At the close of the Revolutionary War, the
Clergy of New Hampshire and New England,
for I cannot separate the two in this paper, was
essentially Puritan, and, so far as it is Pro¬
testant, it is still Puritan. To understand the
influence of our Clergy in our development, we
must remember that the Puritan’s moral and
spiritual ideal was the passion for perfection.
His ideal in government was to make the laws
of the Slate embody and enforce as far as pos¬
sible the laws of God ; his ideal in education was
to provide every citizen with such mental dis¬
cipline as would enable him to understand and
obey first of all the Divine Law, and secondarily
and inclusively, the laws of the State. In every¬
thing, morals, education and politics, religion
was the main concern. That was, and that re¬
mains, the program of the Clergy of New
Hampshire.
The Puritan movement arose in England in
a renascence of the personal conscience. True
religion is a personal matter between the soul
and God. The individual has the responsibili¬
ty of obedience to his own heavenly vision. He
must, therefore, be free to follow his vision.
In such matters as conscience, all external com¬
pulsion, whether ecclesiastical or civil, is essen¬
tially unfree, irreligious. Hence arose the
great Puritan principle of religious and civil
liberty. In spiritual things, the Church must
be free from State control. Congregationalists
insisted even in the autonomy of each individual
* ‘ ' '■ ->.*
64
NEW HAMPSHIRE
church. And if the Church must be free in its
own sphere, the State must also be free, for a
free Church can exist only in a free State. Thus
we see that with the Puritan Clergy, liberty was
a basic principle. And it was in the name of
liberty that our ancestral soldier-saints fought
a hundred battles and finally carved out a new
world to redress the balance of the old.
At the formation of our American Constitu¬
tion one hundred and fifty years ago, we in¬
herited this double liberty. With us it was a
religious heritage. It did not come from Rous¬
seau and the French Revolution, but from Mil-
ton, Cromwell, and the Puritan Exodus. For
these one hundred fifty years we have breathed
in this free atmosphere without being conscious
of it. It is now time to become conscious. We
should learn from the Communistic victory in
Russia how possible it is for violence to resume
her ancient sway where secular motives domi¬
nate, and how little religious liberty can mean,
when civil liberty is no more. If our
people have been tending to forget that
real liberty is bound up with real religion,
— with religion inner, personal, spiritual and
free, and that such religion itself requires civil
liberty in which to expand, if they have been
lazily thinking that religion is perfectly safe
from State meddling, at least with us, and that
civil liberty can be trusted to the educated
classes, the clever politicians, the laissez-faire of
the acquisitive instinct, the biological will-to-
power of the strong, let them learn from their
own history, and from the history of the world
in the last decade, how thin a rim of safety holds
civilization from subterranean fires, and that
SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
65
this rim in the last analysis is not an appetite
but a religion.
R. H. Tawney, in a recent book on Puritan¬
ism and Capitalism, says that the Puritan in¬
sistence on individual responsibility led him to
understress social responsibility. In his su¬
preme effort to save, his own soul in a Kingdom
of God in Eternity, he too much forgot that So¬
ciety has a soul to be saved, and that there is
a Kingdom of God to be builded right here on
this planet. I think this criticism may be truer
of English than of American Puritanism. Look
at some of the great social movements of our
one hundred fifty years. First, the religious
conscience moves against slavery and disunion,
fights the battles of the Civil War, and writes
the Thirteenth Amendment in the Constitution.
Next, the religious conscience moves against
the liquor traffic and writes the Eighteenth
Amendment in the Constitution. Then the re¬
ligious conscience advocates Women’s Suffrage
moved by a spiritual logic that woman has the
same right to liberty as man. Just now the
religious conscience is seeking a larger social
justice. It cries with Thomas Carlyle, “I tell
thee there is nothing great but justice.” It is
looking for a juster distribution of the common
wealth of society by a juster method than
strife. Also there looms on the horizon, dimly
as yet, but visible, the ideal of world peace,
founded on a code of international law, admin¬
istered by an international Court, guaranteed
by a League of Nations. Woodrow Wilson, the
great American protagonist of this ideal, be¬
longs to the immortals solely because of it.
Puritan of the Puritans, he laid his life on the
altar of his mighty dream. If his dream comes
66
NEW HAMPSHIRE
true, it will be through the working of the Puri¬
tan leaven in the heart of America and England.
It is by faith not by fear that great ideals are
realized. It will be well to remember this when
economists tell us that scientific invention will
abolish war by making it unprofitable. War
has seldom been profitable. But man began as
a fighting animal. It is only as he rises into
the glorious liberty of the children of God that
he enters his kingdom of peace.
It is not true, then, in the last seventy-five
years, that our Clergy and Churches have neg¬
lected social for personal salvation. One thinks
of the splendid work done in the education of
the negro ; of such men as Gen. S. C. Armstrong
and Booker T. Washington; of the creation of
such institutions as the Y. M. C. A. and the Y.
W. C. A., the Y. P. S. C. E. and kindred asso¬
ciations. One thinks of the W. C. T. U. which,
from 1872 to the present time, has done so much
to shake down that stupid superstition of the
right of the acquisitive man to traffic in alco¬
holic poison for power and money. One thinks
of educational enterprises like the General Edu¬
cation Board, and of Chautauqua, that truly
democratic college, all the dearer to us because it
is the butt of the pharisees of culture. Also,
when did the Church ever follow in the wake of
armies with such healing in its wings as in the
World War? Who can estimate the depth and
beauty of the work of the Red Cross through¬
out the whole world in the last quarter century?
Indeed I think the danger to-day is that the old
salutary stress on personal godliness is growing
lighter than it ought. For after all, man is
God's building, and if the individual is unsound,
no combination of him can endure.
. :.‘«q f I 1 0 . j;< 1 . : I
Ijh:
SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
67
To make and keep the individual morally
sound and spiritually awake has been and will
continue to be the primary work of our Clergy.
And the Clergy will do this, in the future as in
the past, by flashing the heavenly vision before
the eyes of each man each generation. If the
ministry of to-day, and the laity, have given up
those extra-beliefs which arose in pre-scientific
and barbaric times, that is one of the greatest
gains of evolution. The truth retained, which
makes us one with the Holy Catholic Church of
all the ages, will do for us and our children what
it did for our fathers, it will enable us to func¬
tion in life as victorious ethical persons and not
beasts of the field. That truth which is retain¬
ed, the light and force back of all the creeds, is
the truth of God as conscious benevolent pur¬
pose directing human life to spiritual ends; the
truth of man as spirit, not mechanism ; free and
responsible, not driven by fate ; capable of right¬
eousness, therefore, through a chosen co-opera¬
tion with God, and immortally alive in God —
the eternal home, as He is the source of the
soul.
This truth constitutes the changeless ortho¬
doxy of the Church. Nor is there any rival in
the field except sin, the ancient foe. For I do
not consider as serious that bastard philosophy
born of pseudo-science which asserts that God is
nothing but a name for energy in evolution;
man nothing but a nervous organism whose re¬
actions are all compulsory; righteousness only
a name for utility; freedom and responsibility,
illusions; immortality, the “desire of the moth
for the star;” that, in fact, for us men, the bot¬
tom realities are digestion and procreation with
their respective appetites. If such doctrine
, . > ' i ' ■ 0 ■ > : ; i I ' : !
•T.: . >'■ '£>; .i> .1 Y> e : - : ' .> '< J,r j, .
v i it «-• •• 'j • ; mo 1 do- i/f!r) Mil! 'to yxob
68
NEW HAMPSHIRE
could be set clearly on a basis of demonstration,
it would transform truth itself into ironic laugh¬
ter, society into a bolshevistic mob, and life it¬
self into an anarchic scramble of naked ap¬
petite.
At the same time, it highly befits us children
of the Puritans, ourselves Puritan still, to march
foward with lamps lit and loins girded. Al¬
ready civilization has half ruined itself by giv¬
ing free play to its animal appetites, and half
debauched its soul by deifying those appetites.
But “the gods creep up on feet of wool.” As
the Puritan faith dies out, the deluge comes.
Address of Hon. Sherman L. Whipple
Your Excellency:
Permit me to express appreciation of your
cordial and friendly introduction.
Mr. Secretary, — my venerable and loyal friend —
I salute you! You, to whom so many of us,
and the State, owe a debt of gratitude.
Ladies and Gentlemen:
It was that sage philosopher of the Catskills,
Rip Van Winkle, was it not, who said, “How
soon we are forgot when we are gone?” Mr.
Van Winkle intended for his aphorism a general
application to all humanity; but to those who
follow and profess the law, it would seem to
have a unique application. Strive mightily and
achieve greatly as the lawyer may in life, in
death he is forgotten. His record is written on
the sand and the first wave of oncoming events
obliterates it.
Who of those outside our own profession, —
and how few within it! — know that within a
I 1 IT r ' r
SESQUI-CENTEN NIAL CELEBRATION
69
century there lived and practised law in Ports¬
mouth Jeremiah Mason, ranked by the highest
authority — as a jurist, the equal of the great
Chief Justice, John Marshall — as an advocate,
the match of the immortal Webster?
Who quite realizes that New Hampshire’s
single President of the Union, Franklin Pierce,
was in his day a leader at the Bar, and as an
advocate unexcelled?
The lawyer’s sole rescue from oblivion is on
the Bench or in political life. While the repu¬
tation and memory of great lawyers quickly
fade, the memory of great judges and of great
statesmen is more permanent and lasting.
Webster is an exception to almost every rule,
yet it may well be doubted whether his fame
merely as a lawyer would have greatly outlasted
that of Mason. And Pierce, of course, as an
advocate merely and not as President of the
Union, would likely have been little known be¬
yond the State, and little remembered here.
But why thus? Why should men who in life
so fully occupy the public eye, absorb its inter¬
ested attention and win its applause, so quickly
fade from public memory?
The answer is difficult, and no short analysis
can be complete. Many causes doubtless con¬
tribute. But the one that contributes greatly,
perhaps dominantly, is the little understanding
the public has of the true test of a lawyer’s
merit; the real standard by which his achieve¬
ment should finally be judged; or of the essen¬
tial function of the lawyer in our system of ad¬
ministering justice.
The public loves a vivid contest. It applauds
victory. It acclaims a victor. So the fame is
great of the lawyer who wins. -
■
.
70
NEW HAMPSHIRE
But, of course, mere winning — while most
satisfactory and highly desirable — is no real,
certainly no final test of a lawyer’s quality.
Nor does it mark the highest measure of the
lawyer’s achievement. On mere success no last¬
ing fame can rest.
The true and vital test of the great lawyer is,
I apprehend, his contribution to the cause of
Justice. It is to the cause of justice that the
lawyer owes his first duty ; to contribute worthi¬
ly and well to the upbuilding of the law, upon
which alone our social fabric may securely rest;
to reveal and not to obscure the truth, upon
which alone justice may be done ; and to win vic¬
tories, which are based upon a righteous cause,
rather than by the genius, however brilliant,
“that makes the better reason seem the worse.”
The true and final test, therefore, of the law¬
yer’s merit, the real standard by which he must
be judged, is the measure of his performance
of this duty.
There are those — too many, I fear, — in our
profession, who will not agree with me in this;
who say that a lawyer’s whole duty is done when
he has spoken for his client alone ; that he owes
no further duty to justice; that if justice be
not done, by the fault of his opponent or his op¬
ponent’s lesser skill, no responsibility attaches
to him.
But this cannot be so ! Injustice is injustice,
is it not? And is he, who by superior talent
contributes to bring about injustice, less re¬
sponsible than the one who for the want of abili¬
ties is impotent to prevent it?
The boast of a lawyer that he wins cases by
skill and talent that he ought not to have won
upon the merits of the cause, is a vicious boast,
irl ,•(; .t »L,j i. I -
Jf ' > r ei o\i io sihsm 9r ; t >< fr
SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
71
— a deadly thrust at Justice in her very Temple.
Judged by this test, the judges and lawyers
of New Hampshire have performed well. Of
their record they need have no shame. As a
whole, they have built up the law; they have
supported our institutions and our liberties.
They have served justice well.
To speak of a few who have thus worthily
achieved, — even of Weare, of Richardson, of
Parker, of Doe, of the Smiths, or of Parsons,
would be unjust to the many whose contribu¬
tions have been scarcely less great. To name
them all, the time and the occasion do not per¬
mit.
But we need not seek alone in the past for the
cause of pride in Bench and Bar. For, to-day,
the lofty standards of the New Hampshire
Courts are still maintained. Nor can I refrain
from the mention, at least, of Bingham, an¬
other New Hampshire Judge who would — and
in due course, I trust, yet will — grace the high¬
est judicial tribunal of the land.
All these earnest men, our judges and law¬
yers, performing well their duties, are rightly
the pride of our dear old State. Justice’s es¬
cutcheon in their hands has had no stain. They
have kept the faith.
72
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Address of Mrs. Ida Farr Miller
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen of New
Hampshire :
“New Hampshire Daughters meet to-day,
With joy each cup is brimmin’ ;
We’ve heard for years about her men,
But why leave out her wimmin ?
“In early days they did their share
To git the state to goin’ ;
And when their husbands went to war
Could fight, or take to hoin’.
“Yet, naught is found their deeds to praise
In any hook of histry ;
The brothers wrote about themselves,
And-well — that solves the mistry.”
As New Hampshire’s sons have gone forth to
take responsible positions in all parts of the
world, so the daughters have wandered far, per¬
forming deeds which are worthy of remem¬
brance at a celebration such as this.
I could mention many women whose child¬
hoods could be remembered by you who are
present to-day, and I know that, in your mem¬
ories, their qualities of heart and mind will al¬
ways be recalled, whenever there are occasions
for looking back over the years that have
passed.
Poets have loved our state and have beauti¬
fully expressed in their poems the sublimity of
its hills and mountains, its woods and valleys;
have sung songs of its historic and legendary
heroines until all the world is acquainted with
the facts of its charm and history.
“O the Mountain Maid, New Hampshire!
Her steps are light and free,
Whether she treads the lofty heights
Or follows the brook to the sea.”
To these splendid women who have spent
SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
73
their useful lives within the state, I would pay
a deserved tribute; they rendered daily devo¬
tion to those necessary and valuable tasks, and
by their social, philanthropic and charitable
work have created a better citizenship, and pro¬
vided opportunities for a finer manhood and
womanhood.
We recognize that it is such as these that
have placed our state in the front rank of pro¬
gressive commonwealths, and though their
work is done, their influence still lives and their
good deeds are always gratefully remembered.
We recall Mrs. Sarah A. Blodgett, Mrs. Eliza
Nelson Blair, Mrs. Ella L. Follansby, Mrs. Mary
Parker Woodworth and many others. Hon.
Carroll D. Wright, a distinguished son of New
Hampshire, once said that one reason for the
decrease in population in New Hampshire was
that so many Massachusetts men came here for
their wives.
How true this statement is cannot be esti¬
mated, but perhaps inspired by it, soon after,
there was a gathering together in Boston of
New Hampshire born women who had been
adopted by Massachusetts and there was form¬
ed an association called New Hampshire’s
Daughters.
This society came into being in response to a
tender sentiment of love and loyalty, and it
started a work of devotion to the needs and best
interests of our native state. This has contin¬
ued year after year, with renewed consecration
and enthusiasm, and many hundred women have
had a share in the good work done. Kate San¬
born, our first president, sounded our keynote
when she said, “Our dear native state, we love
it, now what are we going to do about it?”
i ' ■ ' L' ' >'
74
NEW HAMPSHIRE
This organization period of the New Hamp¬
shire Daughters, coincided with that period of
depression in New Hampshire affairs when
New Hampshire farms, a changing and decreas¬
ing population and a lowering of civic morale,
threatened the progress of the state. We were
loyal citizens of the communities in which we
lived, and did our full duty there, but we never
forgot for an instant the love and interest we
felt in the homes of our childhood.
“While here the loom of winter weaves
The shroud of flowers and fountains,
I think of thee and summer eves
Among the northern mountains.”
Who is there, so blessed in a childhood, spent
where the days began with the sun coming up
in the east over our rugged mountains and they
ended with its disappearance over the hills at
the west. Surely we can never forget these first
impressions or erase these pictures from our
memories and time only intensifies the longing
which eventually draws us back.
“Touched by a light that hath no name
A glory never sung,
Aloft on sky and mountain wall
Are God’s great pictures hung.”
A list of noteworthy achievements of those
New Hampshire Daughters would take us the
length and breadth of our state, and cannot be
given in the time allotted here.
We talked New Hampshire, the best state in
the Union, studied its needs, worked for them
enthusiastically; joined with them enthusiastic¬
ally; joined with the organizations here, gave
gladly of our talents and money to the many
SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 75
good works of forestry, education, help for the
aged, orphans, dependent children, hospitals,
homes of all sort, historical societies, all helpful
objects brought to our attention. We raised
scholarship funds that were loaned to worthy
girls in the state enabling them to obtain normal
school training and which obligated them to
give some service in the rural schools of the
state.
These New Hampshire Daughters were a fac¬
tor in helping to establish the New Hampshire
Federation of Women’s Clubs, and always sup¬
ported its activities, and contributed to its many
laudable objects.
The members have bought back ;many old
homesteads and restored them, have acquired
beauty spots all over the state on which the new
homes have been built, have preserved other
tracts of land for future generations to enjoy.
The words of the poet to the Men of New
Hampshire applies with equal force and reason
to her womanhood when he says:
“They have the still North in their souls,
The hill winds in their hreath,
And the granite of New Hampshire
Is made part of them till death.”
New Hamphire women have traveled far in
their work of life, have filled very many places
of usefulness in educational work, missionary
endeavors, as heads of institutions, in the fields
of art and literature, in the ministry and as doc¬
tors, lawyers, social workers, nurses in our own
and foreign lands. When thinking of them we
may recall the words of our poet, Sam Walter
Foss,
76
NEW HAMPSHIRE
“I have passed the Uncanoonucs and have traveled far away,
Through the borderland of mystery upon an endless quest ;
But other Uncanoonucs, glimmering in the twilight gray,
Lift their hazy summits at the threshold of the West;
One misty mountain overpassed upon the march of time,
Another summit breaks in view, and onward still I roam
Another mountain in the mist which beckons me to climb,
Like the Uncanoonuc mountain which I used to see from
home.”
As we gather here to-day to celebrate the
passing of 150 years of independent govern¬
ment in New Hamphire, the lives of some of our
most noted women come to our minds, and it is
well that we remember them.
Mary Baker Eddy, whose birthplace on the
hills of Bow we can almost see from here, is
revered in many homes the world around, and
her influence has been far-reaching. Eleanor
Hodgman Porter, a native of Littleton, is be¬
loved over our own land and beyond, for her
dear doctrine of Pollyanna. At our 25th an¬
niversary she gave us a toast.
“To New Hampshire from New Hampshire’s Daughters;
To New Hamphire’s granite hillsides,
To New Hampshire’s purling streams,
To New Hampshire’s homey firesides,
To New Hampshire’ childhood dreams
Here’s a toast we fondly offer,
On our silver jubilee,
And our loving homage proffer,
May we always loyal be.”
Mrs. H. H. A. Beach (Amy Cheney), a native of
Henniker, admired as a composer of beautiful
music and as a talented pianist, her life has en¬
riched the world of music and her songs will be
sung down through the ages ; Edna Dean Proc¬
tor, also a native of Henniker, whose poems of
New Hampshire speak in glowing terms of the
strength, beauty and never-ending charms of
SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
77
the hills as she knew and loved them ; Mrs. Eliz¬
abeth (Gardner) Bourgereau, whose birthplace
was Exeter, but whose reputation as a great
artist was made in France, is known wherever
art is studied and appreciated; Alice Brown,
born at Hampton Falls, a very well known
writer of New England stories made interest¬
ing with the delineation of native types ; Phoebe
Jenks, born in Portsmouth, an artist of inter¬
national reputation and high standing; Marilla
Ricker, a native of Dover, a national figure, and
one of the first women lawyers to appear before
the United States Supreme Court; Celia Thax-
ter, born in Portsmouth, the poetess of the Isle
of Shoals, who beautified her lonely island home
and made it a Mecca where many travelers
from many lands come to do her homage ; Kate
Sanborn, native of Hanover, a grandniece of
Daniel Webster, brilliant as a teacher, writer
and lecturer, and widely known for her witty
sayings.
Who can forget “Adopting an Abandoned
Farm,” “Calendar of Sunshine,” “Memories and
Anecdotes,” and the others “Wit or Wonder?”
“But now our women take their places
In pulpit court and college
As doctors, teachers, orators
They equal men in knowledge.
And when another history’s writ
Of what New Hampshire’s done,
The women all will get their due
But not a single son.
But no, on sober second thought,
We lead, not pose as martyrs.
We’ll give fair credit to her sons
But not firget her Darters.’’
*
78
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Address of Benjamin W. Baker, M. D.
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen:
Our sires from the British Isles did not come
to New Hampshire alone; they brought with
them their women and children who helped pre¬
serve their ideals of morality and justice, per¬
sonal liberty and the home, until these ideals
have spread across the continent. With the
early colonists came also physicians who as pre¬
ceptors transmitted their knowledge to succeed¬
ing generations, and when, one and one-half
centuries ago, the people of New Hampshire
stood on the threshhold of self-government the
physicians played an important part.
Foremost in the public affairs of their day
were Matthew Thornton and Josiah Bartlett.
Matthew Thornton practiced medicine at Lon¬
donderry and Exeter, was surgeon with Pep¬
pered at the seige of Louisburg, President of
New Hampshire in 1775, delegate to the Con¬
tinental Congress in 1776; member of both
branches of our State Legislature, and Justice
of our Supreme Court.
Josiah Bartlett practiced medicine at King¬
ston, N. H. He served our state as Colonel of
Militia, Chief Justice of our Supreme Court,
member of the Continental Congress from 1775
to 1778, and as our first Governor.
When Thomas Jefferson wrote our immortal
Declaration of Independence, it was signed by
two physicians from New Hampshire — Mat¬
thew Thornton and Josiah Bartlett. While
these men upheld the honor of their state and
country, they did not forget their chosen pro¬
fession. With eighteen associates Josiah Bart¬
lett organized one of the oldest medical asso-
i'll 1 d H0: eOJB: X>8fe8 il • J ',' ml'ff I®! h‘i
SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
79
ciations in the United States — the New Hamp¬
shire Medical Society, which was chartered in
1791. Of those present at the first meeting of
this Society were Dr. Joshua Brackett, Army
Surgeon and Judge of the Maritime Court of
the Colony; Dr. Nathaniel Peabody, Lieuten¬
ant Colonel, Adjutant General, member of the
Committee of Safety, member of (the Conti¬
nental Congress, member of the State Legisla¬
ture and Speaker of the House in 1793; Dr.
William Parker, Jr., Army surgeon, Justice of
the Peace and Register of Rockingham County
Court; and Dr. Isaac Thom, who was surgeon
for Stark’s regiment at Bunker Hill.
The people of our State have ever been willing
to recognize ability regardless of occupation or
profession, so after Dr. David Morrill of Goffs-
town had served as Representative nine years,
had been Speaker of the House, President of the
Senate, and United States Senator for six years,
he was made Governor, in 1824.
Of the many able men produced by the set¬
tlers of Londonderry should be metioned Dr.
Noah Martin, who after a long Legislative ser¬
vice was elected Governor in 1852.
In our national capitol stands the Gallinger
Hospital, fittingly named for Dr. Jacob Galling¬
er, our physician-senator, who was so beloved
by the people of the District of Columbia that
.they affectionately called him “the mayor of
Washington.”
While some members of the medical profes¬
sion have been called to serve in a legislative
capacity on account of recognized ability, others
have sought election for the sole purpose of
creating desirable laws. To this latter class
80
NEW HAMPSHIRE
belonged Dr. Josiah Eastman through whose
persistency an act providing for public libraries
was passed in 1848; and Dr. Ezra Mitchell of
Lancaster, Civil War Veteran, who cared noth¬
ing for politics, but was willing to give any¬
thing that the death rate from tuberculosis in
New Hampshire might be lowered. He suc¬
ceeded in being elected to Legislature, and for
years fought against the great White Plague,
which at that time was the cause of one death
out of every ten. To-day the Sanatorium at
Glencliff, for which he labored, is a testimonial
that Dr. Mitchell's efforts were not in vain,
and that the dread disease is being successfully
combatted.
In medicine and surgery there is but one ac¬
complishment more gratifying than effecting a
cure, and that is the prevention of disease. To
Drs. Granville P. Conn and Irving A. Watson,
our State is indebted for much in the field of
preventive medicine. Together they gave New
Hampshire a Board of Health of splendid ac¬
complishment. For thirty years Dr. Conn act¬
ed as its President, and Dr. Watson filled the
more important position of Secretary for an
even longer period.
Two other physicians who share together in
the honor of a great public work are Drs. Jesse
and Charles P. Bancroft, father and son, under
whose supervision during a period of sixty
years, New Hampshire built up a State Hospi¬
tal for the mentally sick which compares favor¬
ably with any in our country.
During the last seventy-five years much has
been learned in medicine and more in surgery.
Of what other major profession can it be said
that for this period any textbook five years old
'
SESQUI-CENTEN NIAL CELEBRATION
81
has been considered obsolete. The pioneer sur¬
geons of New Hampshire had a full share in
these advances. Dr. Amos Twitched was the
first man to successfully tie the carotid artery.
Dr. Dixi Crosby the first to remove the arm
and scapula for osteosarcoma. Dr. Gilman
Kimball the first to do a historectomy on a
correct diagnosis; and Dr. John W. Elliott did
the first successful resection for mesenteric
thrombosis.
From 1798 to 1814 Dartmouth Medical Col¬
lege was a great educational factor in our State.
During this period of one hundred and sixteen
years, she sent out 2175 young men thoroughly
drilled in the fundamentals of medicine. Im¬
bued with the spirit of the Smiths, the Crosbys
and the Frosts, and carrying with them the
personal memory of such teachers, a large pro¬
portion of these graduates distinguished them¬
selves in the profession. I think it may be truly
said that there is hardly a large hospital or med¬
ical college in the United States which has not at
some time had on its staff a respected member
from New Hampshire. Massachusetts has pro¬
fited by the works of such men as Cheever, Gay,
Otis, Mason, Lund and the Emersons, while
New York still honors Dr. Willard Parker.
These native sons from the Atlantic to the Pa¬
cific have looked backward through their boy¬
hood memories to the pine woods and stone
walls of New Hampshire, and like the Psalmist
of old, said in their hearts — “I will look unto
the hills, from whence cometh my strength.”
For several years after the Declaration of
Independence there were few cities in New
Hampshire. Duty required the doctor to make
long drives over country roads; day or night he
• i >‘T0 r 't . ’< • ;
82
NEW HAMPSHIRE
entered the home of the sick as a sympathetic
friend ready to do his best for the patient, and
receive in return the gratitude of the family,
a bag of potatoes, a cord of wood, or, perchance,
a load of hay for his horse. The doctor was one
of the few educated men of his town. The
severity of the physician's life eliminated from
this calling all but the mentally and physically
strong, and these stalwart, silent, country doc¬
tors had a great influence in community life.
To-day a good education is everyone's privilege,
while our best medical schools require eight
years collegiate study for a degree in medicine.
Forty general hospitals with 1678 beds offer ef¬
ficient care to the sick; the State provides an
equal number of beds for the mentally diseased
and defective, and our hospital training schools
provide us the blessing of trained nurses. The
Board of Health through its twenty-three trail¬
ed workers and its laboratory furnishes anti¬
toxins, keeps our vital statistics, maintains
quarantine against contagious diseases and per¬
forms a multitude of protective activities.
In recent years the trend of our population
has been toward the cities, consequently the
majority of the physicians will be found in the
cities and large towns adapting themselves to
the newer customs of life and modern methods
in medicine and surgery. The progress of
science and the transition of events have modi¬
fied the physician's life, yet medicine was and
is to-day essentially an idealistic profession.
The physician's success in life is determined by
his ability to combat disease and render per¬
sonal relief to his fellowman. To do this well
he must continue to dig deeply in the fertile
field of science mindful that ignorance, prejudice
. ■ ->l ■ e
SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
83
and superstition have applauded themselves in
all civilizations. If our knowledge of medicine
and surgery makes the advance in the next one
hundred and fifty years which it has in the past,
good mental and physical health should be ours
in increasing portion. May we hope that at the
Tercentenary of the Granite State all parents
within her borders shall be cleanly wed, their
children nobly bred, properly fed and wisely led.
Address of Hon. Ernest W. Butterfield
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen:
That far-sighted and clear spoken man, Mar¬
tin Luther, once declared “The education of the
young is a grand and serious thing affecting
the kingdom of God and all the world,’’ and,
again, “Government as the natural guardian of
the young has the right to compel the people.”
In 1520, no one else in all the world believed
these things. No one believed that not war,
nor religion, nor exploration, nor commerce,
was a nation’s chief business but the nurture
and training of its youth. No one believed that
a state had a right to compel the children of
unwilling parents to go to school or to require
childless Smith to pay taxes for schools which
Brown’s children should attend.
The stalwart men who in the years after
1620 at Plymouth, at Dover and at Portsmouth,
at Boston and at Salem faced the forest with
their backs to the sea were far separated from
schools and schoolmasters. Did they then in
despair shelve their few books and sink into a
state of illiteracy? Did they send to the mother
country petitions that mission schools be estab¬
lished and financed so that the light of learning
v: m m . ■ ». t
' a .'N -rr:* .rtotl ■ *•<*••> A
J .1 » r I .
84
NEW HAMPSHIRE
should not go out? They did neither. Before
even they had founded a college that their learn¬
ed ministry might continue, they solemnly
voted, for in 1642 New Hampshire and Massa¬
chusetts towns had a common legislature:
“Forasmuch as the good education of children is of sing¬
ular behoof and benefit to any commonwealth, and whereas
many parents and masters are too indulgent, and negligent
of their duty in that kind,
“It is ordered, that the selectmen of every town in the
several precincts and quarters where they dwell, shall have
a vigilant eye over their neighbors, to see, first, that none
of them shall sufifer, so much barbarism in any of their
families, as not to endeavor to teach, by themselves or others,
their children and apprentices so much learning as may en¬
able them to read perfectly the English tongue, and to get
knowledge of the capital laws, upon penalty of twenty shill¬
ings for each neglect therein.
“Also, that all masters of families do, once a week at
least, catechise their children and servants in the grounds
and principles of religion.”
We have here the fundamental tenet upon
which New Hampshire education has been
builded, that is, that it is the parents responsi¬
bility and the duty of officers and employers to
see that education is for all. For a half of the
three centuries of our history, it can hardly be
said that we had public schools. Intermittent¬
ly, schools at a modicum of public expense were
opened in the southern and eastern towns where
wealth and population made this possible. There
are shadowy names of schoolmasters, as Buck¬
ner, early in Dover but for more than one hun¬
dred fifty years there were few schools for boys
and none for girls.
There was no compulsory attendance and
many children in remote homes never saw a
schoolhouse or a schoolmaster. Yet education
did not fail. Parents taught their children and
n<i >■ vj r r .• -titm u \i *- a o j- j#i it*
SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
85
pastors gave instruction in their homes, for
education was every man’s duty, “a grand and
serious thing affecting the kingdom of God and
all the world.”
Will you compare this New England princi¬
ple with the standards of other parts of our
country? Certain souithern states were also
early colonized, and by Englishmen as well, but #
by Englishman who doubted the efficacy of
general education and who approved the pon¬
derous Virginia governor who thanked God that
his colony had no common schools. From these
states, the southern Appalachian Mountains
were populated and illiteracy fell as a pall upon
an able and progressive people. These high¬
landers waited for schools to be established for
them and the present decade has found remote
counties with general illiteracy; homes with
family books preserved as heirlooms but with
no one able to decipher the scrolls; counties
which now must appeal for outside help that
education may begin again; states where legis¬
lative and organized bans are placed upon
knowledge and scientific truth.
Let us not forget that for a long period of our
history, without formal schools, parents and in¬
dividuals carried on and the wisdom of the an¬
cients was not forgotten.
The idea was even more clearly declared in
our ancient New Hampshire Constitution.
“Knowledge and learning generally diffused through a
community being essential to the preservation of a free
government, and spreading the opportunities and advan¬
tages of education through the various parts of the country
being highly conducive to promote this end, it shall he the
duty of the legislators and magistrates, in all future periods
of this government, to cherish the interest of literature and
the sciences, and all seminaries and public schools ; to en-
86
NEW HAMPSHIRE
courage private and public institutions, rewards, and im¬
munities for the promotion of agriculture, arts, sciences,
commerce, trades, manufactures and natural history of the
country; to countenance and inculcate the principles of
humanity and general benevolence, public and private charity,
industry, and economy, honesty and punctuality, sincerity,
sobriety, and all social affections and generous sentiments,
among the people ; provided, nevertheless, that no money
• raised by taxation shall ever be granted or applied for the
use of the schools or institutions of any religious sect or
denomination.”
This, too, may be summarized. Education is
a grand and serious thing and it is the duty of
all magistrates to see that education be com¬
monly received.
In these two documents we find, I believe,
New Hampshire’s and New England’s unique
contribution to national education. In its suc¬
cessive school laws, New Hampshire has never
lost sight of these principles and in the great
educational measures of 1919 it declared more
clearly than other states that education is for
all children an inalienable right of childhood,
that parental responsibility must be continued,
and that local initiative and state interests must
not fail.
Through its history, New Hamphire has had
distinguished educators, respected at home and
honored abroad., Among Jthese are my able
predecessors in the state office, James W. Pat¬
terson, Fred Gowing, Channing Folsom and,
finally, Henry C. Morrison, now a nationally
known figure as professor of education in the
University of Chicago.
Nearly all of the presidents of Dartmouth
College and of our two normal schools, includ¬
ing the three distinguished scholars who now
preside over these institutions, were New
Hamphire born or schooled.
SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
87
The old time academies, the modern high
schools, or the general field of education have
been the place of work of men like Hiram Or-
cutt, Isaac Walker and Charles L. Wallace, and
of women like Harriet L. Huntress, Catherine
A. Dole and Luella A. Dickerman, and to-day
New Hampshire has a corps of public school
superintendents with higher uniform qualifica¬
tions of training, education and experience than
any other state. Of these, Louis J. Rundlett of
Concord is dean.
New Hampshire though small in area, wealth
and population has contributed most liberally
to the educational renown of her sister states.
Michigan was the first state to have a state
superintendent of public instruction and a uni¬
fied state system of education but in John D.
Pierce, New Hampshire furnished this first state
superintendent. Massachusetts was the first
state to have a normal school but the first school
for the training of teachers was established in
Vermont by Samuel Read Hall, a New Hamp-
hire man. The first great educational institu¬
tion to give full education to women was Mount
Holyoke, but Mary Lyon in 1822 was conduct¬
ing at Derry the first seminary for the higher
education of girls. New Hampshire furnished
the first presidents for Bates and Bowdoin and
the first superintendent for Boston. Our Mr.
Metcalf in his valuable book, “New Hampshire
in History,” has listed scores of others who simi¬
larly have rendered their service in the educa¬
tional field.
To this list I wish that I might add the names
of the thousands of devoted women and men
who year by year teach and have taught the
youth of New Hampshire. That their work is
• .t i n . / • •*.* ■ <
■
88
NEW HAMPSHIRE
well done is shown by the fact that of all states
New Hamphire stands fifth in the proportion
of its sons who have won national prominence
as recorded by inclusion in the volume, “Who's
Who in America." It is shown, too, by the fact
that Dr. Bagley in four great combined meas¬
ures of private morality finds that New Hamp¬
shire holds the first position among the states.
We still believe “The education of the young
is a grand and serious thing affecting the king¬
dom of God and all the world."
Address of Hon. William N. Rogers
Mr. President and Fellow Citizens:
The part taken by the State of New Hamp¬
shire in the development of state and nation
during the last century and a half is one which
must indeed be a source of profound gratifica¬
tion to all her loyal sons and daughters. In this
brief address I am to speak only of the service
rendered the nation by New Hampshire men
in the growth and development of the executive,
legislative and judicial branches of the federal
government.
It is a pleasing and significant fact that the
first signature attached to the Declaration of
Independence following that of John Hancock,
the President of the Continental Congress, was
that of Joisah Bartlett, delegate from the State
of New Hampshire. Equally illustrative of the
patriotic activities of our State in those early
days is the fact that the first signatures to the
Constitution of the United States as originally
drawn and adopted on September 17, 1787 fol¬
lowing that of George Washington were those
of John Langdon and Nicholas Gilman, depu-
r ,v ). 1 1 : V),< 6». .r'l
In. toO la r ;ob
. Wfii iW .noil o f>?f>ibbA
SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
89
ties from the State of New Hampshire. And
when New Hampshire’s vote made that Con¬
stitution a living reality, and a government was
established under its provisions, it was this
same John Langdon from New Hampshire who
was elected president pro tern of the Senate, and
who presided over its deliberations when the
votes for president were counted. Again, it
was this distinguished son of New Hampshire
who officially notified George Washington of
his election as the first president of the United
States of America. ' Thus nearly a hundred and
fifty years ago did John Langdon’s superior
ability manifest itself as temporary presiding
officer of the highest branch of the world’s most
august legislative assembly, thereby affording
ample precedent for the action of the Senate of
the 69th Congress in selecting as its president
pro tern, the present senior senator from the
State of New Hampshire. Other prominent men
who rendered efficient service to New Hamp-
hire and the nation as members of the Senate
from this state during the last century were
Samuel Livermore, president pro tern, William
Plumer, Nicholas Gilman, Jeremiah Mason,
Levi Woodbury, Samuel Bell, Isaac Hill, Frank¬
lin Pierce, Charles G. Atherton, John P. Hale,
Daniel Clark, Edward H. Rollins, William E.
Chandler, Henry F. Hollis and Jacob H. Gallin-
ger. John P. Hale was the first anti-slavery sen¬
ator, and both Clark and Gallinger were honor¬
ed with selection as presidents pro tern of the
Senate.
New Hampshire men serving with distinction
in the national House of Representatives in¬
clude such names as Nicholas Gilman, Abiel
Foster, Jeremiah Smith, Jonathan Freeman,
90
NEW HAMPSHIRE
George B. Upham, Thomas W. Thompson, James
Wilson, George Sullivan, Daniel Webster,
Charles H. Atherton, Arthur Livermore, Mat¬
thew Harvey, Ichabod Bartlett, John Brod-
head, Henry Hubbard, speaker pro tern of the
23rd Congress, Jared W. Williams, Edmund
Burke, Amos Tuck, George W. Morrison, Harry
Hibbard, Mason W. Tappan, Gilman Marston,
James W. Patterson, Aaron F. Stevens, Hosea
W. Parker, Austin F. Pike, Samuel N. Bell,
James F. Briggs, Cyrus A. Sulloway and Sher¬
man E. Burroughs.
Of all the New Hampshire men who achieved
great distinction in the national Congress, the
name of Daniel Webster is preeminent. Born in
Salisbury on January 18, 1782 he was educated
at Exeter, Andover and Dartmouth College,
from which latter institution he was graduated
in 1801. He practiced law in Boscawen and
Portsmouth, and in nine years he had reached
the very summit of his profession. Within the
next decade he became a leading practitioner
before the Supreme Court of the United States.
After serving as a member of the 13th and 14th
Congress from New Hampshire, he removed to
Massachusetts, which state he represented in
the 18th and 19th Congress. He continued to
serve his adopted state and the nation as a mem¬
ber of the Senate from 1827 to 1841. He then
became Secretary of State under Presidents
Harrison and Tyler, again entering the Senate
in 1845. He completed his service in the Senate
in 1850 when he became Secretary of State un¬
der President Fillmore, which position he held
until his death at Marshfield on October 24,
1852. Brilliant lawyer and advocate, orator un¬
excelled in all the history of true eloquence, able
SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
91
and distinguished legislator, statesman and dip¬
lomat, the name of Daniel Webster, native son
of New Hampshire, defender and preserver of
her greatest institution of learning, lives and
will continue to live in the hearts and minds of
his countrymen as New Hampshire’s greatest
contributor to the public service of the nation
or the world.
The State of New Hamphire has given to the
nation one Chief Justice and three Associate
Justices of the Supreme Court. Salmon P.
Chase, a native of Cornish in this state after a
long and honorable career as United States
Senator from Ohio, as Governor of that state,
and as Secretary of the Treasury under Presi¬
dent Lincoln, became Chief Justice of the Su¬
preme Court of the United States on December
6, 1864. He presided at the impeachment trial
of President Johnson in 1868 and died in New
York City May 7, 1873. Levi Woodbury of
Francestown after serving the state as Jurist,
Governor, Speaker of the House and United
States Senator, became Secretary of the Navy
for three years in 1831, then Secretary of the
Treasury for seven years, declined an appoint¬
ment as Ambassador to the Court of St. James
and in 1845 was appointed an Associate Justice
of the United States Supreme Court, serving
with distinction in that capacity until his death
at the age of sixty-one in Portsmouth, on Sep¬
tember 4, 1851.
The names of Nathan Clifford and John J.
Gilchrist recall the services of two eminent New
Hampshire Federal Jurists, the former as As¬
sociate Justice of the Supreme Court and the
latter as the first Chief Justice of the United
States Court of Claims. Harlan Fiske Stone,
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( >1 i f '!J 'o if. iiil * ;’i
92
NEW HAMPSHIRE
native of Chesterfield, is now a Associate Jus¬
tice of the Supreme Court, having been promot¬
ed to this position by President Coolidge from
the office of Attorney-General.
New Hampshire gave one president to the na¬
tion. His life work is thus briefly and eloquent¬
ly inscribed in enduring bronze on the statue
which this state belatedly but fittingly has erect¬
ed in his memory.
“Franklin Pierce, Fourteenth President of the United
States.
Born at Hillsborough, New Hampshire November 23,
1804.
A Lawyer who loved his profession and was a great
leader in it.
Member N. H. Legislature at 25 and Speaker at 27.
Congressman at 29.
, United States Senator at 32 and resigned at 37.
Later in life declined the office of Attorney-General of
the United States, that of Secretary of War, the
United States Senatorship and the Governship of
his state.
President of the New Hampshire Constitutional Con¬
vention.
President of the United States.
Died at Concord, October 8, 1869.
Brigadier General U. S. A.
Puebla
Contreras
Cherubusco
Molino Del Rey
Chapultepec
Commissioner appointed by General Scott to arrange
an Armistice with General Santa Anna.
‘He was a Gentleman and a Man of Courage.’
Ulysses S. Grant”
Admitted to the bar at twenty-three years of
age, at forty-three a Brigadier General in the
Army of the United States, and at the age of
forty-eight elected President of the United
States by 254 electoral votes to 42 votes for his
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SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
93
opponent Winfield Scott, thus carrying all but
four states in the Union, Franklin Pierce, says
his biographer Sidney Webster, within the brief
space of twenty-three years “had accepted or
declined the most important of all the posts of
honor within the bestowal either of his native
state or of the nation. Such a record by con¬
tinuous, unchecked and rapid advance from the
position of a member of the State Legislature,
through nearly all grades of service in peace or
war, to the highest possible office in the United
States is unparalleled. In all this bright career,
Franklin Pierce never stooped to get an office,
nor found it necessary ever to practice the arts
which, too often, these days, bring a man to ele¬
vated public positions with self-respect com¬
promised and power of independent action
gone.”
It is said of Franklin Pierce that he was un¬
surpassed as an advocate, the most finished ora¬
tor who ever occupied the presidential chair
and the first president to deliver his inaugural
address without manuscript.
In connection with New Hampshire’s contri¬
bution to the executive branch of the federal
government, it may well be noted that New
Hampshire has contributed many cabinet mem¬
bers to the service of the nation. General
Henry Dearborn, native of North Hampton,,
was Secretary of War under Thomas Jefferson,
Levi Woodbury, was Secretary of the Navy and
secretary of the Treasury under Andrew Jack-
son, continuing as Secretary of the Treasury un¬
der President Van Buren. Lewis Cass, native
of Exeter, was for a time Secretary of War un¬
der Jackson and later Secretary of State under
President Buchanan.
94
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Nathan Clifford, native of Rumney, was At¬
torney-General under President Polk and John
A. Dix, native of Boscawen, and one of New
York’s most noted Governors and United States
Senators, was Secretary of the Treasury under
President Buchanan. It was Dix who uttered
those memorable ' words: “If any man hauls
down the American flag, shoot him on the spot.”
William Pitt Fessenden, a native of Bos¬
cawen, succeeded Chase as ^Secretary of the
Treasury under Lincoln. Marshall Jewell of
Winchester was Postmaster General under
President Grant, Zachariah Chandler of Bed¬
ford was Secretary of the Interior and Amos T.
Akerman of Keene, Attorney-General. William
E. Chandler of Concord served ably as Secre¬
tary of the Navy under Chester A. Arthur,
while John W. Weeks, native of Lancaster, was
Secretary of War under Presidents Harding and
Coolidge.
New Hampshire’s contribution to the Diplo¬
matic Service is well worthy of the state. The
first United States Consul from New Hamp¬
shire was George Washington’s private secre¬
tary Tobias Lear of Portsmouth, who was com¬
missioned to Algiers in 1803. Edmund Roberts
also of Portsmouth was named as special agent
of the government almost a century ago for the
purpose, among other things, of negotiating
treaties of trade and commerce with Siam and
‘ Japan. Successfully completing his mission to
Siam, he became sick and died on his way to
Japan. Had he lived he might have opened
Japan to world commerce at least twenty-five
years before such an event was actually achiev¬
ed. General Henry Dearborn was United
States Minister to Portugal in 1822, Nathan
SESQUI-CENTEN NIAL CELEBRATION
95
Clifford was Envoy Extraordinary and Min¬
ister Plenipotentiary to Mexico, John A. Dix
was Minister to France, John P. Hale, Minister
to Spain, Christopher C. Andrews, Minister to
Norway and Sweden, George C. Fogg and Per¬
son C. Cheney, Ministers to Switzerland, George
H. Bridgman, Minister to Bolivia, John T. Ab¬
bott and Luther F. McKinney, Ministers to
Columbia and George H. Moses, Minister to
Greece and Montenegro.
From the foregoing inadequate and incom¬
plete review it must be obvious to any fair and
impartial observer that New Hampshire though
small in territory and population, may well feel
a just pride in the part played by it in the build¬
ing of the nation and in the development of the
legislative, executive and judicial departments
of both state and federal governments.
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